Sports

Chris Hoy leads Britain's massive medal haul

by julianw | August 19, 2008 at 01:45 pm

343 views | 4 Recommendations | 4 comments

British cyclist Chris Hoy has won his third gold medal of the Beijing Olympics, boosting Britain's total gold medal tally to 13, the country's best performance since 1920.

Hoy, the silver medalist from Sydney and reigning world champion, defeated Kenny in two races in the final Tuesday at the Laoshan Velodrome to complete a perfect week.

The last Briton to achieve a hat-trick of golds at a single Games was swimmer Henry Taylor in 1908 -- when the bulk of the competing athletes were British.

Britain is in third place in the medal race, behind the US and China, and spirits are riding high in the English media, as The New Zealand Herald reports.

The English media are getting giddy over Great Britain's medal tally with some dubbing the 2008 Beijing Olympics the "Great Haul of China".

Great Britain are a distant third in the medal tally, behind China and the US, with 13 gold medals. China and the US have 39 and 23 gold medals respectively.

The Guardian described the past two days as "heady" with Brits on the dais by the pool, rowing lake, the velodrome and the pommel horse.

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optic

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 16:47 on August 19th, 2008

The British look good ahead of 2012. Chris Hoy has lead the way - but he's not alone. Other than Mark Cavendish not making the podium all looks good (he'll just have to be content with a fistful of Tour stages for this year).

Milieunet

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 20:59 on August 19th, 2008

julianw, I like this story. It's good stuff.

You are very good with the highlight tool. See:

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/great-britain-storms-olympics-medals-table-thanks-lottery-funding

http://www.nowpublic.com/sports/britain-enjoys-best-olympic-haul-century

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/great-britain-storms-olympics-medals-table-thanks-lottery-funding

http://www.nowpublic.com/sports/china-first-usa-far-behind-medal-tally-beijing-olympics-all-gold-medal-winners

Chris T.O

at 05:59 on August 22nd, 2008

Chris Hoy was competing at the World track championships in Manchester, England, 2007. Here, Chris is having to look backwards to check an attack from his competitor.

Chris T.O has contributed a photo to this story.

iainjones1980

at 08:27 on August 23rd, 2008

I took this photo in October 2007 at the National Championships at Manchester Velodrome. Chris Hoy (front middle) was already an Olympic Gold Medallist at this point, winning the 1km time trial at Athens in 2004. Much more was yet to come - at the 2008 World Championships (also at Manchester), he picked up two Golds (Sprint and Kierin) and one Silver (Team Sprint). And then, of course, came the 2008 Olympics...

iainjones1980 has contributed a photo to this story.