Cycling: Pendleton wins fast show but Hoy comes up short

Golden girl victorious again in sprint as Scotland's finest runs out of steam

(afp/getty images)

Not even a dramatic tumble in the final round of the individual sprint could stop Britain's Victoria Pendleton from winning her fifth World Championships gold medal in the discipline in six years last night in Copenhagen. Pendleton took a rare fall in the second heat of the finals against China's Shuang Guo when her front wheel slipped. The only damage was a rip to her skinsuit and after winning the first heat comfortably, Pendleton was in no mood to let her chance of glory slip past.

Already level with Guo as the two sped into the last lap of the re-run, she drew remorselessly ahead with a trademark acceleration down the banking as the finish line approached, and Britain's second gold medal of the 2010 World Track Championships was in the bag.

"If you're not injured, things like that just give you an adrenalin spike," Pendleton said later, "and if it's not close it's not entertaining." Quite apart from wowing the crowds, Pendleton's latest title was the eighth World Championships gold of her career and today she may go for the ninth in the keirin.

Other opportunities for gold could come with Olympic team pursuit champion Ed Clancy in the men's omnium event, and Lizzie Armitstead, a silver medallist in the women's omnium, should have a good chance in the points event.

There was a major surprise in the men's sprint when reigning Olympic champion Sir Chris Hoy was knocked out – along with all the other British contenders – by the quarter-finals. Victorious in the keirin earlier this week, when he netted the 10th World Championships gold of his career, things started to go awry for Hoy when he lost out to Germany's Robert Forstemann in the final eight. Forstemann surprised the Scot by opening up a massive lead early on. Hoy was reeling in the German all the way to the line but was still unable to regain enough terrain to avoid a very unusual defeat.

Hoy finally made it through to the quarter-finals the tricky way, through the repechage requalifying round. But he paid a high price for the extra effort required by the additional round and he was defeated by a tiny margin in the decisive quarter-final heat against Frenchman Grégory Baugé.

On the road-racing scene this week, Mark Cavendish's uneven start to the season continued with a victory and an unexpected setback. Recently blighted by injury, Cavendish seemed back on track when he took stage two of the Tour of Catalunya with a triumphant charge to the line.

However, he abandoned the race on Friday with flu. HTC-Columbia's sports director Brian Holm played down Cavendish's illness, saying: "Abandoning here was more a precaution than anything else. He should be back for the Tour of Flanders, his next race, as planned next weekend."