12:35pm Sunday 17th August 2008
© Press Association 2010
Rebecca Romero won Olympic cycling gold in the women's pursuit at the Laoshan Velodrome, beating fellow Briton Wendy Houvenaghel in the final.
Romero becomes the first British woman to win two medals in two summer Olympic sports, having won a silver in rowing in Athens four years ago.
The 28-year-old from Surrey was over three seconds quicker than 33-year-old Houvenaghel, who was born in Northern Ireland but represented England in the last Commonwealth Games.
Earlier, Chris Hoy and Jason Kenny made it safely through the first round of the men's sprint.
Hoy, aiming to win his third gold medal of these games, comfortably saw off the challenge of Russia's Denis Dmitriev.
And Kenny, a gold medallist with Hoy in the team sprint, had little trouble against Lukasz Kwiatkowski of Poland.
The two Britons had been the two fastest in qualifying with first Kenny then Hoy lowering the record the flying 200 metres used to seed the sprints.
Romero told BBC1: "I can't explain it. It's not the reaction I'd imagined (to winning gold) but it's magical.
"It's been so hard, I can't explain what I had to go through. I totally believe in myself now - I did before, but that was the ultimate, facing demons and up against top opposition today.
"I knew it was in me - a week ago it wasn't. Gold medals don't come easy, that's for sure."
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