Pendleton wins gold in Keirin
Subscribe
Victoria Pendleton
Getty images
Related content
Natalie Broadbent 03 August 2012
Victoria Pendelton has won a gold medal in the Kierin with a sensational ride at the Velodrome as British Cycling continued its dominant display at London 2012.
Pendleton banished memories of the disappointment of the women’s team sprint when she and her partner Jess Varnish were disqualified when looking perfectly poised for a medal.
She beat a fast field in the final to secure the second Olympic gold medal of her career after her success in the individual sprint in Beijing. Pendleton was already the most successful women’s track cyclists of all time with 9 world titles but now has another Olympic medal to add to the collection.
Pendleton has been on UK Sport’s National Lottery and Government funded World Class Performance Programme since 2003. This has provided her with financial support during her cycling career and access to some of the best coaches and support staff in the world through British Cycling.
Cycling has been one of the great British sporting success stories over the last decade and bolstered by investment of more than £26million for London 2012, British Cycling has continued to deliver exceptional performances.
Their fourteen medals in Beijing four years ago, including eight golds, was an extraordinary performance by the team and a reflection of UK Sport's significant investment into the sport over the last fifteen years.
Currently there are 85* athletes on British Cycling's World Class Performance Programme, including multiple Olympic champions Sir Chris Hoy and Bradley Wiggins CBE. Both athletes have been on the Programme since UK Sport was founded in 1997 and will be aiming for further medal success in London.
In addition to the funding of athletes and their performance programme, UK Sport has worked closely with British Cycling to design and develop equipment in line with the UCI's technical regulations. They have developed track based measurement tools and systems to accurately monitor athletic performances in partnership with BAE Systems, McLaren Applied Technologies and Sheffield Hallam University.
Other projects include targeted investigations into understanding training responsiveness to speed and power stimuli, and support in the development and implementation of an injury surveillance programme.
UK Sport has also worked with British Cycling on an extensive programme of events across a number of key disciplines. In total UK Sport has invested over £2 million into thirteen cycling events since 2007 and the BMX World Championships in 2012 was the last World Championships staged in the UK before the Games.
As well as partnering British Cycling to host events in various locations around Britain, UK Sport supported two of the official test events on the Olympic Park ensuring that GB athletes had the opportunity to compete against high level international competition prior to the Games.
Looking to secure a sporting legacy from London 2012, UK Sport worked with British Cycling, EventScotland and Glasgow City Council on the successful bid for a round of the 2012/13 UCI Track World Cup series for Glasgow's Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome. The event will see British Cycling deliver an event in which the world's best riders will compete at the venue for the first time.
