Laura Trott & Victoria Pendleton excel in Olympic track cycling

Laura Trott capped another remarkable day for Britain's cyclists with a win in the third event of the women's omnium, the elimination race.

Trott was left in a one-on-one contest for victory with Sarah Hammer and sprinted clear of the American to win with ease.

Having won the first event of the multi-discipline challenge, she goes into day two of the omnium tied on points with Hammer but in front thanks to her time from the "flying lap".

This followed Jason Kenny's victory in the men's sprint final and a dominant display by Victoria Pendleton in the quarter-finals of the women's sprint.

The 31-year-old Pendleton is retiring from the sport after these Games but has rarely looked in such imperious form.

Facing Olga Panarina of Belarus for a place in the semi-finals, the British star won the best-of-three contest 2-0. The "nil" flattered Panarina, it was not even that close.

Pendleton now faces Germany's Kristina Vogel, 21, in Tuesday's semi-final and, while this should be a much harder contest, nobody who has seen "Queen Victoria" in action in London is expecting anything other than another win there.

That will put her into a final against either her great Australian rival Anna Meares or the powerful Chinese sprinter Guo Shuang. A match-up with Meares would arguably be the race of track cycling programme, but Guo cannot be discounted.

Pendleton, the defending Olympic champion in the sprint, already has gold from the keirin last Friday, and was only deprived of a shot at team sprint gold when she and partner Jess Varnish were disqualified for a minor infringement of track cycling's sometimes mysterious rules.

Bowing out as a triple Olympic champion would be the most fitting send-off for a rider who is probably the greatest female track sprinter of all time.

But if Pendleton is nearly the past for British track cycling, Trott is very much the present.

Already an Olympic champion from Saturday's team pursuit, the 20-year-old is firmly on course to add an Olympic omnium title to the world crown she picked up in Melbourne in April.

The omnium is the ultimate test of a rider's versatility, which makes Trott the sport's answer to Jessica Ennis.

She started the competition with a stunning display in the 250m flying lap, beating French specialist Clara Sanchez by just 0.001 of a second but taking nearly half a second off the time she set at the Worlds.

Trott then followed that with a 10th place finish in the highly tactical points race. Never her best event, she was closely watched by all the leading contenders and had to settle for picking up points on the intermediate sprints that punctuate the 80-lap race.

The really big points come if you can lap the rest of the field, but with so much attention on her, that was impossible. But she did win the final sprint to climb above Australian rival Annette Edmonson.

There was nothing her rivals could do about Trott in the elimination race, though. The aim of this particular game is to make sure you are not in last place when the pack crosses the line every other lap. If you are, you are eliminated.

As the best sprinter in the field, Trott repeatedly timed her efforts to surge past the stragglers and stay in the contest.

And when the field had been whittled down to Trott, Hammer and Edmonson, the crowd roared the young Brit home.

Tuesday's events are the individual pursuit, a scratch race and a two-lap time trial. Like teammate Ed Clancy, Trott prefers the timed events and should win the time trial, but consistency is the key, which means the scratch race (a straightforward race over 40 laps) will be crucial.

With three gold medals up for grabs, and strong GB hopes of winning all of them, Tuesday could be the greatest day in British track cycling history.