Chris Hoy anchored Britain's three-man sprint team to victory over France yesterday to claim the first gold medal of the Olympic track cycling programme.

After their victory Hoy, Jason Kenny and Jamie Staff put their arms around each other and stood on the track to greet the cheering crowd.

"We're so happy," said Shane Sutton, one of Britain's coaches.

"It's great for Chris, he's going for three golds here."

"The French have been dominant, now it's our turn," he added.

Britain won nine of the 18 gold medals up for grabs in the track world championships in the English city of Manchester in March and hope to repeat their performance in Beijing. Scotsman Hoy is Britain's first world sprint champion in half a century. He won Olympic gold in the one kilometre time trial in Athens in 2004.

Germany, Olympic champions in Athens, took the bronze after edging Australia by a hair in the race for third place. Australia were leading the first two laps until Stefan Nimke powered home for Germany.

Australian Bradley McGee, the Athens silver medallist in the men's 4,000 metre individual pursuit, failed to make it out of the qualifying round, the surprise of the first evening of racing at the Laoshan velodrome.