Romero makes history
Updated on 17 August 2008
Rebecca Romero has 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 different summer Olympic sports.
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.
She said: "To have done what I've done - to become an Olympic champion puts you on a different level to everyone else.
"I was thinking in the Olympic village - when you're one of the best athletes in the country, it feels like you're good at something.
"But then you go and mix it up with 6000 of the best athletes in the world and you're nothing unless you become Olympic champion."
Romero is the fifth British cyclist to win a gold medal and the tenth to win a medal of any colour.
Chris Hoy and Jason Kenny made it safely through to the next round of the 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.
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