UPDATED: Becky James on track to turn Olympic silver into gold in Rio

The 23-year-old from Abergavenny had to settle for second in the keirin but in the individual sprint event now looks the nailed-on favourite for the top spot on the podium.

James qualified fastest in the prelims with a time of 10.721 seconds for her 200m qualifying run – an Olympic record that beat Victoria Pendleton’s previous best at London 2012.

In the next round she avoided the repechage as she barely got out of second gear in cruising past Azerbaijan’s Olga Ismayilova to secure her spot in the last 16.

And this afternoon James reached the quarter-finals after beating Virginie Cueff of France.

On these early showings the British duo of James and Katy Marchant – who has also qualified - are going to take some stopping when the medal matches arrive on Tuesday.

That makes Team GB’s inability to qualify for the women’s team sprint competition all the more galling, but James and her teammate could well replicate their male counterparts Jason Kenny and Callum Skinner who contested the individual gold-medal match on Sunday night.

Sunday was another triumphant night of track cycling for Team GB as Kenny took gold and Skinner silver - the nation's fifth and sixth medals in the velodrome already.

There were those that suspected the Brits’ customary dominance in the velodrome would not be so overwhelming in Brazil but – unfortunately for the rest of the world – it has not played out that way.

James and Marchant have their sights set on more silverware when the sprint finals resume on Tuesday, while Laura Trott’s omnium campaign also reaches a conclusion.

And British cycling head coach Iain Dyer insists most of the other nations are beaten before they even reach the start line. “Our lottery funding is based on Olympic medals and we’re able to show now that we can deliver when it matters most,” he said.

“Just like in Beijing and just like in London, we’ve been able to take a step forward when it counts and sometimes nations have come forward a little bit but not enough and them sometimes nations have taken a step back.

“It is like we’re slightly intimidating teams. We sensed that in training. We sensed that back in Beijing also.

"There was a notable moment in Beijing where there was a rival on the rollers clocking the stopwatch on what he was doing on the rollers and then he decided to time our efforts.

"We’d beaten him before we got to the line as he saw what we did and his jaw dropped.

“We had exactly the same moment this week in training with the team sprint effort.

“We didn’t pay any attention to anyone else until we got to the start line. We had that confidence in ourselves from the holding camp to the competition.

“It sounds a bit boring to say it but after that it’s a case of executing your strategy.

“We’re getting it right and we’re getting it right consistently through the last three or four Olympic cycles now.”