Great Britain and China top cycling medals table

Great Britain garnered 15 meadals, including five golds, in the track cycling competiton.

With one more victory, in the men’s visually impaired sprint, on the last day of racing at the Velodrome, Great Britain finished the four days of track cycling at the top of the medals table.

With five golds and a total of 15 medals, Great Britain leads China (five golds and nine medals) and Australia (four golds and eight medals) on the cycling circuit.

The first victory of the final day went to New Zealand, who won its first gold when Phillipa Gray and pilot Laura Thompson beat Ireland’s Catherine Walsh and Francine Meehan in the final of the visually impaired individual pursuit.

Beaten fair and square by the Irish at the world championships in Los Angeles at the beginning of the year, the New Zealanders showed that they had moved up a gear in the qualifications, breaking the world record by five seconds. They confirmed their form to easily win the final.

Afterwards, Gray said the final had been both a race against the opponents and the clock.

“There were two options, either catch the Irish or beat our own time and just hang on for dear life,” Gray said.

The second of the day’s three gold medal races was the men’s visually impaired individual sprint. It was an all-British final that saw Anthony Kappes and pilot Craig MacLean get revenge on their non-finish in the time trial yesterday to beat the time trial Paralympic Champions Neil Fachie and pilot Barney Storey.

Asked whether the gold medal made up for the disappointment from the day prior, Kappes replied: “It would be churlish to say no. We came here to win two gold medals, we’ve won one. Yesterday things didn’t work out.”

Track cycling at the 2012 Games drew to a close with the final of the mixed C1-5 team sprint, which saw the British trio of Jon Butterworth, Darren Kenny, and Waddon line up against the Chinese riders Ji Xiaofei, Liu Xinyang and Xie Hao.

Only four-thousandths of a second separated the two teams during the morning qualification rounds in which first Great Britain, then China had broken the world record over the three laps.

The final saw the Chinese team win gold and bring the world record mark down even further.

The cycling competition resumes on Wednesday (5 September) with the road time trials at Brands Hatc. That will then be followed by three days of road races.