Sir Chris Hoy Signs Off In Style But Pendleton Misses Out

Team GB's track cyclists won three medals including two gold on the final day of action in the velodrome to take their tally to seven golds, equal with the amount that they managed in Beijing four years ago. Sir Chris Hoy and Laura Trott stormed to take their second wins of the Games in the keirin and omnium respectively. The gold medals took Great Britain and Northern Ireland up to 22 gold medals in total and strengthened their stranglehold on third place in the process.

After Hoy and Pendleton had easily progressed into their finals Laura Trott was up in her 500 metre time trial, the last event of the omnium. She went into it needing to finish three places above American Sarah Hammer to take the gold after being pushed back into third place in the scratch race earlier in the afternoon. She absolutely went for it in the time trial and won it in a time of 35.110 seconds ahead of Annette Edmondson. Hammer could only finish in fourth place behind Sanchez of France to give Trott a dramatic victory and gold medal. It was the 20-year-old's second win of the Games after also taking gold with the women's team pursuit. Thanks to Trott's great performance the stage was perfectly set for the elder statesmen to take centre stage.

Pendlton faced old rival Anna Meares in the final in what was always going to be a classic. The Australian 2004 Olympic time trial winner won the sprint world title in 2011 but lost it this year to the Brit in Melbourne. Meares was hoping to beat Pendleton this on her own patch this time. The first race was highly controversial as Meares appeared to elbow Pendleton, forcing her out of her lane in the process. Pendleton won by a tyre width but was then relegated for leaving her lane. Despite some heated discussions in the centre of the track the decision stood and the Brit faced having to come back from one-nil down. It wasn't to be for the queen of the track in her last ever race as she failed to hold off Meares who stormed through to take her second Olympic gold, equalling Pendleton's tally.

The last to ride for Britain was Sir Chris Hoy as he set about surpassing Sir Steve Redgrave's total of five Olympic golds and levelling Bradley Wiggins's total amount of seven medals. The hunky Scot went out behind the pace-bike in third place before making his move almost as soon as the pacing bike made way. With still three laps to go Hoy stormed away from the field but German Maximilian Levy passed him with less than a lap to go. In the face of adversity Hoy immediately fought back as Levy struggled as a result of covering more ground and the home favourite came through in fine colours to win his record sixth gold medal.

It was a fitting swansong for one of Britain's greatest ever sportsmen and at the age of 36 he confirmed that this would be his last Games: "I'm in shock but this is just surreal and this what I wanted, to win gold in front of the home crowd. After seeing my team-mates win gold I wanted to come to the party. Unbelievable. The perfect end to my Olympic career. You won't see more, not in the Olympics as I'm 99.9% sure that I won't be competing in Rio."

Brilliant Brits Continue Success As Hosts Move Up To Fourth In Medal Table

The home nation continued to take the London Olympics by storm as they secured another three gold medals on day seven. Golds on the track in the men's team pursuit and women's keirin followed gold at Eton Dorney for Katherine Grainger and Anna Watkins in the women's double sculls. The men's pursuit quartet of  Geraint Thomas, Ed Clancy, Steven Burke and Peter Kennaugh smashed the world record that they had set in qualifying by nearly a second leaving Australia languishing over two and a half seconds behind. Victoria Pendleton made up for her disqualification in the team sprint to beat Chinese cyclist Guo Shuang to the line and seal keirin gold.

Grainger and Watkins got the ball rolling with a dominant victory over Kim Crowe and Brooke Pratley of Australia as the former took her first Olympic title at the fourth time of asking after silvers in Sydney, Athens and Beijing. The 36-year-old said that the winning moment was well worth the wait: "Steve Redgrave promised me there would be tears of joy this time and there are. For both of us we knew we had the goods to perform and it was about delivering." For Watkins the gold was her second Olympic medal after a bronze in the same event four years ago.

However there was more to come from Team GB and the next successes would come in the Velodrome as the Brits dominated the team pursuit competitions. The men's team took the gold medal in a new world record while the women broke the world record in their qualifying competition. After the record-breaking effort of the men's pursuit it was down to Pendleton to try and take GB's gold medal count on the track to three in the keirin. She duly delivered after breezing past Australian world champion Anna Mears with two laps to go. Mears faded as Shuang came roaring back but home girl Pendleton held off her challenge as Hong Kong's Lee Wai Sze took bronze. The great win takes Britain's cycling total to four golds for the games.

As well as the three gold medals the hosts also took four bronze medals on a thrilling day of Olympic action. Defending champion Rebecca Adlington went into her 800 metre freestyle final as the favourite but was stunned by 15-year-old American Katie Ledecky who came up narrowly short of breaking Adlington's world record. The crowd roared her on but she seemed to struggle under the pressure and finished with a bronze medal to go with her 400 metre bronze from earlier on in the week. She said that she was happy with her finish and said that she hoped that the 'nation would be proud of her bronze medal'.

After Gemma Gibbons’ silver yesterday in the judo Karina Bryant took bronze by winning a thrilling fight against Ukraine's Iryna Kindzerska. That continued a great performance from the British judo team that includes two medals which is a great achievement considering that their last medal was in Sydney twelve years ago. Bryant's medal followed two bronze's at Eton Dorney thanks to George Nash and Will Satch in the men's pair and Alan Campbell in the single sculls. Overall seven medals for GB on day seven represented a good result but there were other encouraging performances.

Jessica Ennis started her heptathlon gold attempt in style with a British 100 metre hurdles record while Dai Greene in the 400 metre hurdles and Christine Ohuruogu in the 400 metres comfortably qualified from their heats in the Olympic Stadium. Andy Murray sealed an impressive straight sets 7-5, 7-5 victory over Novak Djokovic to set up a final meeting with Roger Federer in a repeat of the Wimbledon final. With plenty more medal chances coming up on day eight the Brits will be confident of holding onto their third spot in the medal table.