Great to be British Team GB strikes gold AGAIN after cyclists smash the world record in the team pursuit

Britain's incredible gold rush in the Beijing Olympics continued today as the sensational cyclists smashed a world record and took the overall gold medal haul to the highest total in 88 years.

The four-man team pursuit outfit of Ed Clancy, 23, Paul Manning, 33, Geriant Thomas, 22, and Bradley Wiggins, 28, destroyed their Danish rivals over 4,000 metres in the Laoshan Velodrome to claim Britain's sixth cycling gold.


They achieved a time of 3:53.314 - slashing two seconds off their previous world record.

The win makes the cycling team the single most successful in one sport in British Olympic history with hopes of another four golds to follow over the next three days.

It all took the so-called 'Great Haul of China' from Britain's team to 27 - 12 golds, seven silver and eight bronze - the most golds since the Antwerp Games in 1920.

Importantly too, it also took Britain back up to third in the overall medals table and ahead once again of Australia after three Aussie wins earlier in the day had seen them leapfrog Team GB in the bitter battle for supremecy.

The win was the second gold in Beijing for Wiggins - and his third in all - as he led the British quartet of pursuiters home in front of a Union Jack-waving crowd.

'It's phenomenal,' said Wiggins, from West London, who now has six Olympics medals and goes for gold again on Tuesday.

'We are a fantastic team and we have sacrificed a lot. We came to win and now we have achieved our goal.

'I set out to do that. I believed I could do it. But to put it into practice is another thing. It's such a relief when you do it and cross the line.'

He added: 'What the team is achieving is fantastic but we know there is still more to do.'

Manning, from Stockport, added: 'This is the pinnacle - we have been working on this for the best part of a decade, what a performance.'

Wiggins and fellow cyclist Chris Hoy could both secure a historic hat-trick of Beijing gold medals in races on Tuesday.

In doing so, they would become the first Brits to win three golds in a single Games for 100 years, with swimmer Henry Taylor having secured a treble in 1908.

Among those cheering him on today was Wiggins' wife Cathy, 28, who embraced him at the end.

She said: 'He came here to get three medals and he's not finished yet. It is amazing but it is going to get better.' Wiggins smiled and added: 'I'm greedy, I want three.'

The couple have two children Ben, 3, who already has a BMX bike, and one-year-old Isabella.

Great Britain chef de mission Simon Clegg injected a note of caution to national frenzy, however.

He warned that Britain had more chance of finishing ahead of the Australians in the medals table in London in four years' time than at this Olympics.

Asked whether Britain could 'beat the Aussies', he said: 'I'm convinced we can beat them in London in 2012, whether we can beat them here in Beijing, we've got to wait and see.'

British Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe has bet his Australian counterpart Kate Ellis Britain will finish above its old foe - and the loser has to wear the others team's colours at a sporting event in their own country.

Britain is hopeful of another sailing gold on Tuesday after Paul Goodison opened up a massive lead in the Laser class on the waters of Qingdao, 300miles from Beijing.

The 30-year-old, who just missed out on an Olympic medal in Athens four years ago, ensured that he will not suffer similar heartache in Qingdao as he placed first, fourth and sixth in his races to surge 18 points clear of his nearest rival Sweden's Rasmus Myrgren at the top of the standings.

An eighth-place finish in the medal race will give him the gold and the worst he can do now is bronze.

There was another silver today in Qingdao where Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield in the 470 men's class repeated their achievement in Athens by finishing second.

After a gold rush over the weekend, the British team is now on course to beat its target of 41 medals in Beijing, 11 more than in Athens.

Meanwhile, Michael Phelps, winner of a record eight gold medals in Beijing, said he will visit Britain on his way home to attend a party organised by Olympic sponsors in the Mall on August 24 to celebrate the handover of the Games to London.

Phelps, 23, said: 'It will be a great opportunity to celebrate the success of the Beijing Games and to kick-off the countdown to London 2012. I am honoured to be part of this celebration.'

Fellow swimmer and British double gold medallist Rebecca Adlington, 19, spoke today of her desire to replicate Phelps' success at the London games in four years.

'Seeing him win that eighth race was absolutely amazing. It was really exciting. He is an amazing swimmer and I definitely look up to him as a role model.

'I can only dream of having the same success as him.'

Her second gold came on a spectacular weekend for Britain, which saw golds in the rowing, swimming and sailing.

Three blondes, four golds and Britain climb up to third in the medal table

Sarah Ayton, Sarah Webb and Pippa Wilson claimed a gold medal for Britain with
victory in the Yngling medal race at the Olympic sailing regatta today.

In what amounted to a two-horse race for the gold against the Netherlands in
the Yngling class, Team GB came home in first place for the first time in the
regatta with the Dutch trailing in fifth in heavy conditions on the Yellow Sea.

And there were three more golden moments as Mark Hunter and Zac Purchase won the lightweight men's double sculls in the rowing, sailor Ben Ainslie won the Finn class and cyclist Rebecca Romero won the women's individual pursuit.

The British trio of Ayton, Webb and Wilson entered the regatta as heavy favourites after dominating the Yngling class for the past two years, winning back-to-back world championships, last year's Olympic test event in Qingdao and this year's European
championships.
But they went into the medal race with only a slender one-point advantage after
finishing fifth behind the winning Dutch crew of Mandy Mulder, Annermieke Bes
and Merel Witteveen in the eighth and final preliminary race on Friday.

Light, unsettled wind conditions saw the race being postponed from Saturday but
the boats were eventually flagged off in much heavier conditions 24 hours later
as strong winds and heavy rain descended on the waters off Qingdao.

The Dutch had the jump on the British boat at the start but it was Team GB that
reached the windward mark first, just a second in front of the Dutch and the
rest of the field.

They maintained their lead at the second mark and although they were overtaken
by Germany during the second leg, the Netherlands had dropped back to sixth, 51
seconds adrift of the British.

Ayton, Webb and Wilson regained the lead on the run to the finish line and
crossed the line seven seconds ahead of Germany and a minute in front of the
fifth-placed Dutch.

The Netherlands took the silver while Greece finished in third place in the
race to secure the bronze medal.

The crew were understandably thrilled about their win and Sarah Webb is
predicting more success for the crew in years to come.

She said: "I'm lost for words, it is such a relief. Our experience was
everything, we stayed sure and we got better."

Ayton added: "It's been brilliant, this campaign has been about pure
perfection and we're just an awesome team."

Wilson, who joined up with Webb and Ayton after their gold medal in Athens with
Shirley Robertson four years ago, was delighted with her first prize.

"This has been the dream and it hasn't really sunk in," she said.

Mud Olympics

Pictured: The horrific moment Olympic weightlifter turns his elbow back to front

This is the moment Hungarian weightlifter Janos Baranyai's first Olympics ended in agony when he dislocated his right elbow in the ugliest moment yet of the Olympic weightlifting competition.

Baranyai was trying to snatch 148kg in his third lift in the men's 77kg division, when his elbow popped out of its socket.

No longer able to support the weight of the barbell, his right forearm bent backward. The 24-year-old Hungarian fell to the floor in shock, shaking and crying out in pain.

Hungary's coaching staff and competition officials rushed to Baranyai's aid as he lay trembling on the floor, his arm limp and twisted out of position.




Baranyai was carried off the platform on a stretcher and taken by ambulance to a local hospital for evaluation and treatment, said Benny Johansson, a technical controller at the event.

It was not immediately clear how serious the injury was.

'It looked really awful,' Johansson said. 'If the ligaments are damaged then it could take several months to heal."

He said elbow and knee injuries are the most common injuries in the sport, 'but the number of injuries are quite small in comparison with the number of athletes. You cannot even compare it with football for example.'




A former judo wrestler from Oroszlany, Hungary, Baranyai was competing with the so-called B-group of lifters in the 77kg division.

Hungary's lone lifter in the Olympics, he was ninth in both the snatch and clean and jerk in the European Championship earlier this year and placed 33rd in last year's world championship.

He cleared his first snatch attempts at 140kg and 145kg before loading up the bar at 148kg - a relatively modest weight in top-level competition. The world record in the snatch is 173kg.

In the snatch, the bar is pulled overhead in one continuous motion as the lifter settles into a squat, then rises with arms extended.

Baranyai was in the squat position when his elbow popped.

Olympic Leak

Olympics: Britain win first gold medal in women's cycling race

Nicole Cooke has won Britain's first gold medal of the Beijing Olympics, cycling to victory in the road race.

The 25-year-old Welshwoman was in a group of five that pulled away from the peloton in the 6km uphill climb to the finish through driving rain. She then won a sprint to the line before hoisting her arms in the air in delight.

'We did it, it was perfect. It's a dream come true,' said a jubilant Cooke, who finished in 3 hours, 32 minutes and 24 seconds .


'I want to thank all the people who have been there from the start. I have worked so hard, I am so happy.'

Cooke came fifth in Athens when a lack of supporting team-mates cost her a medal.

But today with Emma Pooley and Sharon Laws she had probably the best British women's team ever assembled.

Simon Clegg, Team GB's chef de mission, said: 'Nicole Cooke has just secured Team GB's first medal - and what a medal. It's not only gold but it's Team GB's 200th gold medal from the modern Olympic Games.

'Emma and Sharon did an awesome job in supporting Nicole in her race for gold.'

Sweden's Emma Johansson won the silver and Tatiana Guderzo of Italy won the bronze.




Nicole Cooke Factfile:

1983 - Born April 13, Swansea, Wales.

2000 - Wins gold medals in world championship junior road races in France and

Spain.

2001 - Continues that success with further wins in junior race and time trial

in Portugal. Awarded the Bidlake Memorial Prize, given for outstanding performance or

contribution to the betterment of cycling.

2002 - Wins gold medal in women's road race at the Commonwealth Games in

Manchester.

2003 - Wins the women's road race world cup, the youngest to do so and the

first Briton. Named BBC Wales Sports Personality of the Year.

2004 - Becomes the youngest winner of the Giro d'Italia Femminile. August - Finishes fifth in road race in the Athens Olympics.

2006 - Wins the bronze medal in the road race at the Commonwealth Games in

Melbourne. September 3 - Wins road race world cup for the second time.

2008 - August 10 - Wins gold medal in road race at the Beijing Olympics,

Britain's first medal of the games.

Cheeky George Bush works up a sweat getting to know the women's volleyball team

As leader of the free world George Bush has a lot on his mind, not least the charms of his female volleyball and softball teams.

The U.S. president is in China for the Olympic games and has been spending his time getting to know the American athletes a little better.

They seem to be getting along famously, with Bush giving one contender from the U.S. volleyball team a playful pat on the bottom.

Athens gold medallist Misty May-Treanor had laughingly bent over and offered Bush the chance to give her a spank on her rear - a jokey custom between players intended to offer encouragement.

The playful President instead tapped her on the small of the back. Misty did not seem intimidated by the President's attentions, soon coaxing him into joining the action.

She asked him if he would play a little 'pepper', a warm-up drill bumping the volleyball back and forth.

A somewhat unwilling Bush initially tried to steer clear, replying 'No, I'm a pretty good spectator.'

But after watching for a few minutes, he donned a sun visor and joined the fun.

Despite the distractions of his scantily clad teammates he played a rally of five, in which he hit two but missed the third try as the ball fell a little short.



Under the hot Beijing sun Bush soon worked up a sweat in his heavy blue cotton shirt and long chinos.

But there was no time to change as he rushed off to offer his backing to the U.S. Women's Softball Team. The former president is an big baseball fan who once co-owned the Texas Rangers Major League team.

Before going through their stretches and take some batting swings, the team huddled around the president. 'Who do we play for?' Bush quietly asked the group after being prompted by the coach. 'USA!' the players shouted in return.



This is the last year in the Olympics for softball, which was added to the games programme in 1996 in Atlanta. Asked by a reporter whether the sport should be allowed back into the Olympic Games, Bush said: 'It should be.

'It's good for the world to have girls playing softball, and these women are going to show young girls how to win,' he added.

An exhausted Bush then headed off to join his wife and daughter Laura to watch the U.S. women's basketball game against the Czech Republic.

Olympics: Phelps launches bid for immortality with new record

Michael Phelps coolly launched his bid for Olympic immortality by breaking his own Games record for the 400m individual medley with a calculated early surge in the opening day heats at the spectacular Water Cube aquatic centre.

The American, seeking to eclipse Mark Spitz's haul of seven gold medals set at Munich in 1972, recorded a time of 4mins 7.82secs to qualify fastest for the Sunday morning showdown with his compatriot Ryan Lochte. He admitted afterwards he had been determined to send a message of intent to his rivals from the outset. "I wanted to be in the middle of the pool for the final because that's going to give me an advantage," said the 23-year-old, who already holds the world record for one of the toughest races on the Games schedule. "I'm pretty satisfied with the time. I didn't think I'd swim that fast in the preliminaries."

There are a potential 19 further races still to go if Phelps wishes to edge past Spitz and become the undisputed emperor of the Beijing pool. Even at a Games being staged on such a monumental scale eight gold medals will take some collecting, but there was an ominous ease about Phelps's first outing. At the halfway mark he was only a fraction outside the world-record split-time and he was a second and a half quicker than his nearest qualifying pursuer, Hungary's Laszlo Cseh.

Known as the 'Baltimore Bullet' to his friends, it was clear Phelps meant business even before he mounted the blocks. Gone was the wannabe handlebar moustache he has sported during his initial days in the athlete's village, a further clue that Phelps is not here to muck about. There is even less body hair at an Olympic swimming meet than you'll find at the average alopecia clinic, and Phelps would be missing a trick if he did anything to encourage the myriad smooth operators around him.

All that remains now is to prove his fast start was not a premature splash in the pan. Mental strength will be every bit as important as the extraordinarily long torso which makes him unique in his chosen sport. It is Lochte's misfortune to be around at the same time as this veritable human fish but even the unluckiest swimmers have drawn first prize in terms of the venues at this Olympics. While others broil outside in humidity and heat of steaming intensity, the Water Cube is a spectacular oasis which can accommodate 17,000 grateful spectators. The organisers' problem is not so much keeping the swimmers happy as extracting them from the cooling water once their races are over.

Britain will be represented in the women's 400m individual medley final by Hannah Miley from Inverurie in Aberdeenshire who qualified from the neighbouring lane to Phelps's female counterpart Katie Hoff, the current world record holder. Miley, who celebrated her 19th birthday on Friday, finished eighth fastest after a hotly-contested sequence of heats but will do well to capture a medal against a high-quality field which also features the 15-year-old Elizabeth Beisel of the US and the sleek Australian Stephanie Rice.

Hartlepool's Jemma Lowe sneaked into the semi-finals of the women's 100m butterfly by four-hundredths of a second and Christopher Cook also survived to fight another day in the men's 100m breaststroke. The women's 100m freestyle relay team also did just enough to qualify at the expense of Japan.