Latest news from Beijing

August 16, 2008

Team GB won its 700th medal of the modern Olympic Games in possibly the most successful day in British Olympic History with four gold, one silver and four bronze medals spread across a number of different sports.
BT Ambassador Chris Hoy picked up Britain’s 700^th medal in the men’s cycling keirin with Ross Edgar taking silver in the same race. Hoy, following on from his gold medal in the men’s team sprint on Friday, simply had too much power for his rivals and pulled away to win comfortably and pick up his second first place finish in 24 hours.

"It's just incredible,” said Hoy.” Physically it wasn't an easy race, because of the races yesterday and their close proximity. I just had my head down and was thinking about the finishing line - nothing else. I think that race was one I'll remember for a long time. It just means everything to me.”

Unfortunately BT Ambassador Ben Ainslie was frustrated again in his quest for his third successive Olympic title with the Finn class medal race abandoned after 30 minutes with Ainslie in gold medal position. Ainslie and the Yngling trio of Sarah Ayton, Sarah Webb and Pippa Wilson, will now go for gold on Sunday as the medal races are rolled over a day due to light winds.

“It was massively frustrating – I felt like I had one hand on the trophy there,” Ainslie commented. “I’m going to have to come out fighting tomorrow and try to do it all again.”

The other medal winners for the day were as follows:

Rebecca Adlington became the first British woman to win two swimming gold medals at one Olympic Games after shattering the 800m freestyle world record to win gold.

"This means everything to me. I never knew it was going to be like this. I just got in there and did my best,” said Adlington "It's absolutely amazing. I've worked so hard and it's paid off. It's so exciting."

Britain’s men’s four put on a surge of power in the rowing over the last 250m to win the nation’s third successive gold medal at this class. The foursome of Tom James, Steve Williams, Pete Reed and Andy Triggs-Hodge over-powered the leading Australian boat to win in a time of 6:06.57, coming back from a deficit of 1.5 seconds at the 1500m mark.

Elise Laverick and Anna Bebington brought home a bronze medal after a thrilling finale to the women’s double scull at Shunyi Rowing-Canoeing Park.

The Team GB pairing of Matt Wells and Stephen Rowbotham took bronze in the men’s double sculls final on Saturday afternoon.

Cyclist Chris Newton returned to top level competition in style in Beijing, picking up a bronze medal in the men’s points race at Laoshan Velodrome.

And Bradley Wiggins produced another outstanding performance to strike gold in the men’s individual pursuit retaining the title he won in Athens four years ago. He becomes the first athlete to win men's individual pursuit titles at back-to-back Olympic Games. And there was also a deserved bronze medal for British team-mate Steven Burke