Big names lead the way on day three

Chris Hoy won his first ever British national championship sprint gold medal as he breezed past the field but Geraint Thomas stole the show with two sub-4:20.00 rides on his way to gold in the 4000m pursuit.

Men's Sprint

Chris Hoy won the gold medal in the sprint championship without losing a race, beating Christian Lyte, Ross Edgar and Matthew Crampton on the way.

The strength of the Olympic champion showed through as he makes his comeback from a heavy fall at the world championships last year as none of his opponents could overhaul him.

Defending champion coming into the titles, Crampton took the silver medal and Jason Kenny the bronze in a closely fought sprint championship.

Afterwards Hoy admitted that he was not at the top of his game. "I felt really rusty today, and in France, when I was racing the sprint because, tactically, it took a lot of concentration to try and take charge of the race," the Scot explained.

"At the start, because you have so much more speed than the other riders, it is harder because you switch off mentally, knowing that you are going to win it. It is easier to race against faster opponents so I got into it more at the end when I raced Ross and Matt," he added.

Men's 4000m Individual Pursuit

Geraint Thomas blew the field away in his first ever foray into the individual pursuit with a dazzling show of speed.

Riding in the penultimate heat of the qualifying round, the Welsh rider had to beat a time of 4:33.00 to give himself a chance of the final. He eased through in a time of 4:18.00, the fastest pursuit time at a British national championship.

That made the Barloworld rider the fourth quickest British pursuiter, behind the likes of Chris Boardman and Bradley Wiggins, and set him up nicely for the final where he almost beat his own record.

Andrew Tennant produced impressive rides to take the silver medal but he was a full six seconds behind the champion in the final.

Reigning champion Steven Burke will have been disappointed with the result as he failed to claim a medal. He was beaten in the third place ride off by Ben Swift, who has had a brilliant year which culminated in him winning the final stage of the Tour of Britain.

Thomas was rightly thrilled with his performance, saying: "I have had a bit of a poor season with my crash and injuries so I was always looking forward to the end of the season - this and the World Cup," he said.

"It's good to be back racing, to go sub-4:20 in the Nationals is pretty good going really and it is all looking good for next week. I kind of knew I was strongest going into [the championship], it was just about getting a good time and riding evenly," he added.

Now the Barloworld rider is looking forward to the World Cup, which starts next week, and taking the team pursuit title back: "The team is going pretty well, we have Ben Swift in there now, we are all good mates so we are looking forward to riding together. The Danes took the world championship off us in March so we are looking for revenge."

Women's 15km Scratch Race

Lizzie Armitstead claimed the women's 15km scratch championship with a well-crafted ride to outsprint the field.

Armitstead put herself in the perfect position going into the last of 60 laps as she lay third after two early attacks. Hannah Mayo and Dani King, silver and bronze medallists respectively, pushed her hard to the line but Armitstead was too strong.

The Otley-born rider led a three pronged attack early on before trying to go on her own with around 10 laps left.

She dropped back after the second attempt to break the field up had failed but climbed well as Alexandra Greenfield and Sarah Reynolds made one last attempt to attack the field.

In a tentative opening 20 laps, Janet Birkmyre was the first rider to pull out and just nine of the scheduled 15 finished. Armitstead will be pleased with her victory and looking forward to the rest of the championships.

Results