Rio 2016: Team GB hit by accusations of 'very questionable' cycling success by German champion Kristina Vogel

Kenny and Trott became the latest GB athletes to win gold at the velodrome on Tuesday night

Laura Trott and her fiancé Jason Kenny, whose gold medals each cost approximately £5.5m in public money to achieve (AP)

German world champion Kristina Vogel has labelled Team GB’s cycling success at the Rio Olympics as “very questionable” after their sharp upturn in form since the World Championships.

Jason Kenny and Laura Trott became the latest British athletes to win gold at the velodrome on Tuesday night, in their keirin and omnium races respectively, taking Team GB’s total medal haul in cycling up to 12 - five more than gymnastics.

The British team have benefited from a fresh wave of National Lottery funding in recent years but some, including French sprint coach Laurent Gané, have posed unwelcome questions over their meteoric rise at Rio, saying they did “nothing extraordinary” beforehand.

“They were cannon fodder when you look at the last few years,” Vogel, 25, said. “Now they come along with a (high) level. I don’t want to accuse anyone of anything but it is all very questionable.”

Gané added: “The recipe should be asked for from our neighbours because I don’t understand. I don’t know what they’re doing.

“These are teams that do nothing extraordinary for four years and once they arrive at the Olympics they outclass the rest of the world.”

Michaël D’Almeida, part of France’s bronze medal-winning sprint team, said: “We are human beings like them, we are made of the same stuff, we have a bike like they do, so why are they better?

“If I had the explanation I wouldn’t be here today with a bronze medal around my neck. I’m not in their camp, in their country, I don’t know how it works, I don’t know what goes on. I have my ideas about certain things.”