Team GB today promised “new heroes and heroines” to come after the success of cycling’s golden couple Laura Trott and Jason Kenny. He was already an Olympic champion, but when he won those three medals, to me it was really special.
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She also won both events in London. “It just started to snowball”.
Their wins capped another outstanding day for the Great Britain and Northern Ireland team, with Becky James and Katy Marchant winning silver and bronze respectively in the women’s cycling sprint.
“It’s not about beating the Brits”, Vogel said.
As the 24-year-old ticked off the 100 laps without incident, picking up early sprint points for insurance, the real battle was for silver between American Sarah Hammer and Belgium’s Jolien D’Hoore.
Not everything went well for Britain, though.
Callum Skinner was caught out in his heat in the keirin and forced to go to a last-chance repechage. He roared to a victory and a spot in the semifinals, only to find out moments later he had been relegated for deviating from his line, eliminating him from competition.
Immediately afterwards Laura Trott, the triple Olympic gold medalist, will race the fifth event of the omnium before her fiancé Jason Kenny continues in his quest to win a record sixth gold.
“Jolien is an awesome racer”. Father David said she had an injury in 2014 and a cancer scare in 2014, “so it’s an incredible achievement”. “I guess I’ll just have to to wait and see”, she said.
Given how rare it is for a keirin race to be halted, it isn’t clear why it happened twice in one race, although the BBC’s commentators speculated that it may have been down to the derny rider peeling off the track later than usual, making it confusing for the riders.
She stopped on the front stretch, laid down on the track and held back the tears.
She said: “We were so happy with the support we get back home and it’s nice that if it inspires the next generation to get out there, if that means people wants to come and speak to us, then so be it”.
Kenny’s father Michael told the Standard he would be “grateful” if his son was rewarded with a knighthood, but it was “up to her Royal Highness”.
Kenny is seen much less in the limelight than some of the other successful cycling Olympians like Hoy or Sir Bradley Wiggins, and is hoping that life doesn’t have too much of a drastic change after his success at the Games.
Trott’s mother Glenda said: “They’ve got a wedding to plan”.
Once the race finally began, Kenny slotted in behind Joachim Eilers and Damian Zielinski entering the final lap. He sprinted to the outside, overtook the leaders down the back straightaway, and still had the power in his legs after two previous gold medals to win one more.
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“Usually when they shoot the gun someone gets disqualified, but it was very tight between us and that rule is very vague”.
