Rebecca Romero became the first British woman to win medals in two different summer Olympic sports when she beat her teammate to win gold in the women's 3-km individual pursuit cycling yesterday.

Wendy Houvenaghel took silver to make it a one-two victory for Britain. Lesya Kalitovska, of Ukraine, took the bronze after beating Alison Shanks, of New Zealand.

A rowing silver medallist in Athens in the quadruple sculls, Romero switched sports and made her track cycling debut only two years ago. She won two world championship titles in March.

Romero dominated the head-to-head race against Houvenaghel from the beginning, reaching a speed of nearly 52 km/h over the 12-lap race.

Shortly before Romero's golden ride, her former rowing team-mates were beaten by China for the gold medal in the women's quadruple sculls.

In contrast to Romero's victory lap, her former team-mates sat slumped in their boat after losing out to China.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.