大象传媒

Laoshan Velodrome, Beijing

The is still floating around my head even after a night's sleep.

They have been contenders and medallists at World Championship and Olympic level for around a decade now, but finally pulled off the big one after winning a bronze medal in Sydney and silver in Athens.

To do it in a world-record time of three minutes 53.314 seconds was jaw-droppingly good - it was more than eight second faster than their silver-medal winning time in Athens and just short of five seconds faster than .

But the thing that strikes me is there's every chance Britain will be just as competitive in four years' time.

The team pursuiters are a perfect illustration of the talent coming through the cycling programme.

and , are products of the system and hopefully have their best years ahead of them.

Bradley Wiggins is 28 and will still be around for London, while came out to Beijing as part of the team pursuit squad - but ended up being drafted into the individual event at 24 hours notice.

He excelled and collected an unexpected bronze medal while improving his time with each ride.

So as you can see, even with the retirement of Paul Manning, the next generation are already there.

Talking of the next generation, what about Jason Kenny in the men's sprint?

The 20-year-old from Bolton, who has , was a triple world junior champion two years ago and has made it into the last four of the competition in Beijing.

Among those potentially standing in his way? Team-mate and world champion Chris Hoy.