By Roger Vaughan British cycling star Bradley Wiggins scored another Olympic gold medal for his country when he won the men's individual time trial.
The first British rider to win the Tour de France clocked 50 minutes 39.54 seconds over the 44km time trial course at Hampton Court near London at an average speed of 52.1km/h.
He finished 44 seconds ahead of German Tony Martin, while fellow British rider Chris Froome was third at 1:08.
Kiwi Jack Bauer, who almost came off his bike at a roundabout, was 19th, in a time of 54:54.16.
It is Wiggins' seventh Olympic medal and his first gold in road cycling.
Wiggins won gold medals at the previous two Olympics in the individual pursuit and was part of the British squad that won the team pursuit at Beijing.
Earlier on Thursday, Kiwi Linda Villumsen was an agonising 2s shy of winning bronze in teh women's time trial.
American Kristin Armstrong, who also won the time trial gold medal at the Beijing Olympics, triumphed.
Armstrong, who turns 39 this month, announced her second retirement from the sport soon after her storming win.
She came back from retirement two years ago and a broken collarbone in May to dominate the 29km women's race.
She clocked 37:34.82 at an average speed of 46.3km/h to easily beat German legend Judith Arndt, the reigning world champion.
Arndt was 15.47 seconds off the pace and Russian Olga Zabelinskaya claimed her second bronze medal at these Games just 1.73s ahead of Villumsen.
NZN