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With four gold medals under his belt, out of the five that have been awarded during the first three days of Olympic track cycling, the Great Britain team seems very well placed to repeat or even improve on the extraordinary collective performance four years ago in Beijing, where the British riders triumphed eight times.
While awaiting for the result of the Omnium – a specialty integrated for the first time in the Games that presented in yesterday’s session the highly appreciated elimination round – and the return to the Olympic Park velodrome of Victoria Pendleton and Sir Chris Hoy, it was the Pursuit teams that made the biggest impression.
After the men’s victory on Friday – when the world record at four kilometres was smashed – Dani King, Laura Trott and Joanna Rowsell gave yesterday a new demonstration of perfect technical mastery in this very difficult exercise. Against the Americans in the final, they never gave their opponents a chance, and even succeeded for the sixth consecutive time in beating the world record at three kilometres (3’14’’051’’).
 “I was only eight years old when I began to dream about this day,†said Laura Trott – the youngest rider in the team, who lives only a few kilometres from the site where her dream became reality – straight after the end of the race. “I can hardly believe it: My mother only cycled for her health and well-being, but this led to my sister – who is also a rider – and I discovering this fantastic sport. And today I’ve won the gold medal at the Olympics!â€
This pursuit of perfection of the British arises from the work philosophy that David Brailsford has brought to the team. “Behind these moments of joy lies the will, the sacrifices and the joint efforts of all the members of our delegation", the High Performance Director said. "We laid the foundations for this success day after day, always being attentive to the smallest details, and always trying to add something extra. In this way, I think that after the World Championships in Melbourne in April, we were able to go beyond the immediate satisfaction at the results obtained, and remain focused on this objective. Personally, I’m convinced that each time that we think that we’ve gone as far as we can, we begin to have problems! That’s exactly what I want to avoid with my athletes.†It seems that he has succeeded.
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