The worlds in words

The worlds in words

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With six gold, four silver and three bronze medals, Great Britain's track cyclists enjoyed their final competitive run out before the Olympic Games in an eventful five days at the Hisense Arena in Melbourne.

Below you can read what the athletes and coaches made of the action - you can also listen to their thoughts in the player.


Sir Chris Hoy after becoming keirin world champion for a fourth time in a stunning final: “I’d given up – not given up physically but I though the chance of winning had gone by the time I hit the back straight with half a lap to go. I hesitated for too long, I waited behind Jason [Kenny] as I thought he was going to go with everything and he didn’t, he’d hesitated for too long I think. Normally I would have gone round the outside but I’d killed my run a bit, lost momentum. It was one last chance, I’ve never done that in my life before, go on the inside - it was a last chance saloon and it paid off. I couldn’t believe the door opened and I managed to get through.”

Ben Swift claimed scratch race gold with a superbly judged ride: "The Austrian guy was on the front so I knew that the Czech guy was on my wheel. So I had to wait, recover and hit him. I didn’t want him to come through. I just needed to do my own race and it paid off."

Ed Clancy – alongside Peter Kennaugh, Geraint Thomas and Steven Burke – set a new world record of 3:53.295 in the final of the men’s team pursuit, beating Australia: “It’s good news for us – even if we’d lost today we’d still have been happy with the progress we have made. That record’s been around long enough. This is a good place to take it down. We’ve just had a little debrief and I didn’t realise it was so close between us and the Australian team.”

Victoria Pendleton won her sixth world sprint title, overcoming Anna Meares en route in a dramatic semi-final which saw the Brit crash in the first ride before taking the decider by the narrowest of margins: "To be perfectly honest I didn’t think it was possible coming into today - beating Anna Meares in the semi-final, I thought I’d be riding for the bronze medal. She’s such a fantastic opponent, she was so strong last year and in London I thought she had the upper hand so to make it thought that felt like a really amazing achievement."

Laura Trott added omnium gold to the team pursuit world championship and world record – wrapping up the title in style with 1st place in the 500m TT: "I'm over the moon. I didn't come here thinking I would win the omnium so it's a really nice feeling. It's a really big thing for me to win."

Wendy Houvenaghel secured silver in the women’s individual pursuit and believes it sets her up well for the coming months up to the Olympics: "I'm pleased to come out tonight and give the IP a good go and I was pleased to come away with a medal. It’s really encouraging to know that the work that I have done has been helpful for my performances and I’ll take that forward over the next four months and try to develop that even more."

After missing the 2011 world championship, Joanna Rowsell celebrated a third world championship title with the women’s team pursuit and a world record: “We knew we had more in the tank – I felt good in the final. Laura and Dani were awesome. We stuck to our plan which was to out steady and hold pace. It was important not to get carried away. We rode our own race and came away with the in so I’m over the moon. I so wanted the raindbow jersey back and the girls obviously wanted it back having had it last year.”

Philip Hindes clocked an impressive opening lap of 17.510 in the team sprint before GB along with three other nations were disqualified for a hand-over infringement: “I reckon I can much quicker. I feel I can improve at every training session. I did a good time and we’ll see how I can improve in the next few months. They are really happy with the time and that I have improved a lot.”