Britain underlined their dominance of track cycling when the women's pursuit team set a world record and the men's quartet posted the second-fastest time ever in the Manchester round of the World Cup today.

The British team of Joanna Rowsell, Wendy Houvenaghel and Lizzie Armistead beat Germany in the 3 000 final of the first round of the World Cup in a time of three minutes, 21.875 seconds. That beat the 3.22.415 set by Rowsell, Houvenaghel and Rebecca Romero for Britain in last year's world championships on the same track.  The record had extra resonance as the event looks likely to be added to the Olympic programme in 2012 after the IOC and UCI agreed a provisional plan to increase the number of women's events while cutting some of the men's.

Armistead, who won the points race just a few minutes before the pursuit final, said: "As a team we've really come together and to pull a time out like that is really special. In the men's 4 000m final Britain caught Spain just after the halfway point and kept going to record a time of 3:54.395, a time bettered only by the British quartet who won gold at the Beijing Olympics in 3:53.14.

Geraint Thomas and Ed Clancy rode in both races and Thomas said: "We knew we were on good form and wanted to get a track record but we were just floating out there." Earlier today, triple Olympic champion Chris Hoy scooped his third gold of the weekend when he led his three-man team to victory in an all-British team sprint final.

Hoy also won the sprint and keirin events as Britain's gold count hit double figures. British cycling's performance director Dave Brailsford, who oversaw their eight-gold performance in Beijing, said he was not surprised by his squad's impressive performance.  "We always said that after Beijing we were going to back off a bit for a year and to be honest I think the rest of the world got a bit chippy and thought that's the end of it and that we were a one-trick pony team," he said. "So we came into this World Cup wanting to put down a marker and that's what we've done. - Reuters