Olympics cycling: Home support boosted GB - Ed Clancy

Ed Clancy says the crowd at the London Velodrome inspired Britain's team pursuiters to smash the world record and defend their Olympic title.

Clancy, Steven Burke, Geraint Thomas and Peter Kennaugh were roared home as they beat rivals Australia for gold.

"It just blows your mind," said Clancy, part of the quartet that won the same event in Beijing in 2008.

"It felt like everyone was cheering for us. It was just incredible. The whole way round it was just a wall of noise."

Thomas added: "The noise in the velodrome has been amazing. It's too loud if anything."

Kennaugh said they had been riding that sort of time in training, but admitted the margin of their win had surprised him.

"Were we expecting to be that far ahead of Australia? No, not really, but we have been talking about the Aussies since we beat them in Melbourne in the World Championships - where are they at and what are they doing - and nobody was really sure.

"We had the Aussies pushing us for years and that has made this more meaningful, if it wasn't for the Aussies and for the fact we have lost a lot of bike races on the way here it wouldn't have been the same. I think they have pushed us to do that time today and good on them."

Clancy feels the quartet could go even faster in the future after revealing that Thomas was hit by illness in the run-up to the Games.

"Geraint had a bad case of food poisoning last week," said Clancy. "He was still good and he still pulled it off, because he is a world-class rider.

"But if he was on his 'A' game, we would have gone quicker."

Clancy has a chance of a second gold medal at London 2012 in the omnium, a six-discipline event that begins on Saturday and will be held over two days.

But he is already thinking ahead to the Rio Olympics in 2014 and the possibility of a third successive team pursuit triumph.

"I don't know where the team pursuit squad is going to go from here," the 27-year-old admitted.

"I don't know if Geraint and Peter are going to concentrate on the road like Bradley Wiggins [another member of the quartet who won in Beijing] has done, but then again Brad and Mark Cavendish might come back to the track and the team pursuit before then and we might have six or seven real big hitters going for it."