Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton hit flying form as worlds approach

The spotlight was on Sir Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton at the Revolution meeting, in both the literal and metaphorical sense. The Beijing gold medallists were the centre of attention in Manchester as they made their final race appearances before next month's world championships in Copenhagen, and they performed under five dazzling 18,000-watt lamps to enable the meeting to be shot in 3D by Sky television, making this the first cycling event to be captured using the technology. Just four weeks from the worlds, Hoy and Pendleton look in scintillating form and so do the rest of the Great Britain sprint team, male and female. Match sprinting was the centrepiece of Saturday's afternoon session and the Olympic champions lived up to their billing by qualifying fastest ahead of strong entries from Holland and Germany. Hoy went below the magic 10sec barrier in the flying 200m time-trial qualifier for the third meeting in a row, and although his 9.995sec was slower than in qualifying for his last appearance, at the World Cup meeting in November, it came at the end of a normal week's training in which he had not backed off to save his strength. "I didn't feel brilliant, so it's nice to go that fast. It's a similar time to the World Cup or the national championship last year, but there I was rested and fresh. This is just the fourth day of a standard week: I trained on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. I just want to get through the evening as efficiently as possible, and get a good day's racing." The afternoon session was added to the programme to accommodate the Great Britain sprinters and they showed considerable strength in depth behind Hoy, with his fellow Beijing gold medallist Jason Kenny qualifying second-fastest ahead of Matt Crampton and Ross Edgar, all four progressing easily to the final phases. Pendleton was joined in the last four of the women's competition by teenager Jess Varnoish, who is likely to be her team sprint partner at the world championships. The afternoon's other major event, the national championships in the 50km two-man Madison relay, went to Great Britain under-23 academy riders Luke Rowe and Mark Christian. Meanwhile, in Belgium, Juan Antonio Flecha powered to a stunning victory over the cobbles of the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad at the start of the classics season. The Spaniard joined a breakaway group with 25km to go in the 204km race and made what proved the decisive move with 19km left as he went clear by himself.