The British team pursuit quartet of Ed Clancy, Paul Manning, Geraint Thomas and Chorley's Bradley Wiggins produced another stunning performance to win Team GB’s sixth cycling gold medal of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games and became the first British quartet to win the team pursuit at an Olympic Games for a century.
The British quartet axed another 1.888 seconds off the world record they had set just 24 hours earlier in round one and nearly overlapped their Danish opponents as they approached the 4000m finish line to win in 3:53.314. It means they have slashed just over three seconds off the world record in Beijing.
It was first time since the London 1908 Olympic Games that Great Britain have won the gold medal in the team pursuit. The team pursuit gold also makes it Britain’s biggest overall gold medal haul at an Olympic Games since at Antwerp in 1920.
Their gold was Britain’s 12th of the Games – half of them won by Team GB cyclists.
It was also a landmark for Lancashire based Wiggins, who takes his Olympic medal haul to six, including three golds, from his three Games.
Wiggins said: “We knew the gold wasn’t ours by right and we knew we had to give our best performance.
"Tonight we knew as a team we could do a 54, but 53 was phenomenal, although to be honest all we were really thinking about was getting the gold medal, not breaking the world record again.
“This team really has no fear. It’s just amazing,” he added.
Clancy commented: “I knew we could win and I knew we could get a world record.”
Thomas said: “We gave 100 per cent and that’s what you get. To me the medal is more important than the record. I got a bronze in Sydney and silver in Athens. Gold is what we wanted.
“We came in confident, especially after qualifying. We knew we had something special, but that time, wow!”
The record books will show it was the it was the first British triumph in the team pursuit at an Olympic Games since Benjamin Jones, Leon Meredith, Clarence Kingsbury and Ernest Payne beat Germany to take gold in 1908.
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