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Jill Douglas

British cycling revolution rolls on


Chris Hoy said it would take a "special ride" to beat the British Sprint Team in Beijing and boy was he right! No-one was equal to the efforts of Messrs Staff, Kenny and Hoy over three laps of the track as the British cycling revolution rolled on.

I was slightly less confident than Hoy at the start of the evening after listening to the French broadcasters next to us talk up their own team's chances. The French had been half a second faster than the British trio (with Ross Edgar instead of Kenny) at the World Championships in Manchester.

But Hoy knew how the team were performing in the run-up to these Games and was less surprised than the rest of the velodrome when they smashed the world's best time in qualifying.

Jamie Staff has devoted the last two years to perfecting the opening lap and gives the British team such a wonderful platform and Jason Kenny is living the dream after storming into this sprint line-up.

Kenny looked like an old pro as he stuck to Staff's wheel (well, almost) and gave Hoy the lead out he needed to bring home the gold. The Scot conceded that he too struggled to keep with the pace but his immense power was equal to the challenge and the Brits in the velodrome went wild.

The GB team

I had barely recovered from their incredible qualifying time of 42.950. It stunned the rest of the field and completely silenced the French media beside us.

But it didn't silence the Hoy family who I caught up with after the evening's excitement. They are such wonderful, dedicated bike fans and have travelled all over the world supporting Chris and the rest of the team and have become great friends since we all made the expedition to Bolivia last year to see Chris attempt the world kilo record.

I received a fantastic email from Chris's dad David this morning with footage of the rest of the clan back in Edinburgh watching the cycling yesterday. It looked like quite a party so I guess, if you can't be here tonight, then I guess that's the next best place to be when he goes for his second gold of the Games in the keirin and Bradley Wiggins defends his pursuit crown.


Jill Douglas is a BBC Sport presenter. Our FAQs should answer any questions you have.


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  • 1. At 5:02pm on 16 Aug 2008, BenIsRight wrote:

    You only realised that France were favourites for the team sprint when you heard the french tv tell you they won by half a second at worlds. Surely you should have known that already! And i cringed when you said you and most cycling fans expected maybe 4 golds on the track. 4 golds would have been a disaster!

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  • 2. At 5:49pm on 16 Aug 2008, FreshSpice wrote:

    I would like to comment on the wonderful acheivement of Rebecca Adlington, she has been amazing. Can I ask, however, that so-called experts commentaing from China STOP saying that she is only the third since the war to win 2 golds at one Olympics. What about Tammy Grey Thompson, who won FOUR GOLDS in one year. Obviously she doesn't count among "REAL" athletes because she had to win Eleven to get made a Dame.

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  • 3. At 7:01pm on 16 Aug 2008, Not logged in wrote:

    FreshSpice - I think you'll find they're called the Paralympics, not the Olympics. And do try finding an article about Ms Adlington if you want to comment on her achievement, it's not very hard.

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  • 4. At 4:15pm on 17 Aug 2008, Baron_Daguerre wrote:

    And FreshSpice, I think you'll find it's TANNI Grey-Thompson.

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  • 5. At 05:55am on 18 Aug 2008, Jill Douglas - BBC Sport wrote:

    Hi BenIsRight
    Great to see you are enjoying the cycling, it has been an incredible few days at the velodrome with more to come!!
    Re the French sprint team's time, well I'm sure you watched our coverage of the World championships from Manchester earlier this year where I was in the centre of the velodrome and so I was very much aware of their threat and how fast they could go. Alas my French isn't good enough to be able to do my homework by listening to their broadcasters!
    As for my predictions - I guess I was being slightly cautious, I said anything less than four would mean something had gone badly wrong...happily everything is going incredibly well so keep on cheering home the GB team!

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