Brailsford - GB back on form

Hoy: Scooped three golds

I think a few people started writing us off after last year, but we're not ready to be written off just yet

Dave Brailsford
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Performance director Dave Brailsford claims British Cycling was back to its best at the Track World Cup in Manchester.

Great Britain put their recent World Championships dip behind them and showed great potential for the London Olympics by striking gold 10 times from 17 events, and also adding four silvers and one bronze at the Manchester Velodrome.

"We said before the weekend it was about the hunger, the attention to detail, the fight, getting the processes right - the results look after themselves and that's pretty much what happened," said Brailsford.

"I think a few people started writing us off after last year, but we're not ready to be written off just yet."

Four-time Olympic champion Sir Chris Hoy made a notable contribution to the haul, taking golds in the keirin, spring and team sprint alongside Jamie Staff and Ross Edgar.

Victoria Pendleton, Chris Newton, Lizzie Armitstead, Geraint Thomas and Wendy Houvenaghel were the other individual champions.

Hoy was back to top form after recovering from a hip injury which ruled him out of the World Championships in Poland earlier this year and set a 200metres track record of 9.869 seconds in qualification for the sprint.

The 33-year-old from Edinburgh also clocked the fastest final lap ever to anchor the Team Sky+HD squad to victory in the team sprint against a young British trio.

"He's going as well as I've ever seen him going," said Brailsford.

"Chris could be forgiven for losing a little bit of desire in terms of what has happened to him but he leads the way in that respect; he wants it more than anybody still, he trains as hard as anybody and he is everything you want an elite athlete to be."

Improving

Hoy insisted that he is continually improving and is eager to show that he still has more to give.

"I didn't expect to be going this well," said Hoy. "I think my form is as good as Beijing just now, but I also feel as though there's more to come - that's the exciting thing."

The team pursuit squads sealed Britain's dominant display, with the men's quartet of Ed Clancy, Thomas, Steven Burke and Andy Tennant clocking a track record of three minutes 54.395 seconds, second only to the world record set by Clancy, Thomas, Paul Manning and Bradley Wiggins in Beijing.

The women's trio went one further and smashed the world record, with Armitstead, Joanna Rowsell and Houvenaghel recording a time of 3mins 21.875secs.

Reigning Olympic individual pursuit champions Bradley Wiggins and Rebecca Romero were both absent from proceedings in Manchester following the announcement that their event may be removed from the programme in London 2012.

Britain triumphed nonetheless, with Houvenaghel securing the women's event and Thomas dominating the men's.

The omission of the individual pursuit would leave Wiggins and Romero without a title to defend in 2012, but Brailsford believes Britain should be prepared to adapt to whatever is decided by the cycling world's governing body the UCI and the International Olympic Committee in December.

"We've got world-class performers in any discipline, we're blessed with talent and it's a shame to see anybody losing out," said Brailsford.

"But at the end of the day we're paid to win Olympic medals, we're not paid to ride non-Olympic events. It's as simple as that."