Latest news from Beijing

August 20, 2008

BT Ambassador Shanaze Reade kicked off her Olympic campaign today by setting the second fastest time of the day to reach the BMX semi-finals. The 19-year-old world champion will get a favourite gate at the start of tomorrow’s race after recovering from a crash during the first race of the day.

“Mentally I was prepared, but then I did it and I washed out,” she said. “I don’t know why I fell. We looked at the video, it’s just one of those things, that’s BMX. It didn’t affect me. I’m hurt a little bit now, but I’m also excited.”

If Shanaze advances into the final, with the top four riders from each semi, she could have a medal within 24 hours. As event favourite she will have to defeat her main competitor, France’s Anne-Caroline Chausson, in tomorrow afternoon’s final.

BBC viewers hit 2.3 million during BT Amassador Chris Hoy’s sprint race yesterday as he became the first Briton to win three golds at one Olympic Games for a century. The 32-year-old is now considering his options citing the 2012 London Games as a “massive motivation” for him.

"I really want to keep going as long as I can. I really love what I'm doing day-to-day, the training, the preparation, all part of the life of being a cyclist. As long as I'm healthy and fit I want to keep going."

In other British medal news:

Great Britain captured silver and bronze medals in a new Olympic event, the 10km marathon open water swim, with Keri-Anne Payne finishing second and Cassie Patten in third place in a race which lasted just short of two hours this morning.

Windsurfer Bryony Shaw has taken Team GB’s fifth sailing medal of the Beijing Olympic regatta with bronze in the RS:X category in Qingdao.

Tasha Danvers smashed her personal best to win bronze in the 400m hurdles taking 0.18 seconds off her old best. Her medal was Team GB's third track and field medal of the Games to date.

Finally, Jamaica Usain Bolt redefined the men's sprint today when he became the first man in the Games' 112-year history to get a sprint double with world records in the 100 metres and 200 metres. Bolt won gold, streets ahead of the pack and ran 200m in 19.30 seconds - shaving two hundredths of a second off Michael Johnson's 19.32 seconds from the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. He is the first man since Carl Lewis in 1984 in Los Angeles, and the ninth overall, to win the 100m and 200m at one Olympics.