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Cycling
Beijing 2008
Romero creates history
Afp, Beijing
Great Britain's track cyclist Rebecca Romero displays her individual pursuit final gold in the Beijing 2008 Olympics at the Laoshan Velodrome in Beijing yesterday. Photo: AFPBritain's Rebecca Romero made Olympic history here Sunday when she became just the second woman to claim medals in two different sports at the summer Games.England's Romero dominated an all-British track cycling individual pursuit final to leave Wendy Houvenaghel of Northern Ireland with the silver medal after posting a winning time of three minutes 28.32 seconds for the three-kilometre event.Lesya Kalitovska of the Ukraine defeated New Zealand's Alison Shanks to win the bronze medal.Romero's was the first Olympic gold medal for Britain in the event, and came a day after Bradley Wiggins successfully defended his individual pursuit crown in the men's four-kilometre race.Romero's win, five months after her maiden world title, meant Britain had now claimed an impressive four gold medals from five of what will ultimately be a total of 10 finals.British riders have also now won eight of the 15 medals up for grabs so far.Romero, who won an Olympic rowing silver four years ago in the women's quadruple sculls, follows in the footsteps of Roswitha Krause of the former East Germany.Krause won a swimming silver at the 1968 Games in Mexico from the women's 4x100m relay, then won silver in the women's handball final at the 1976 Games in Montreal and handball bronze at Moscow in 1980.The 28-year-old Romero admitted there was no way she was settling for silver this time."I'd have been absolutely crushed if I got the silver," said Romero, who only took up cycling seriously in 2006 after giving up rowing due to a recurring back problem."It's taken for me to come into cycling to realise my full athletic potential," she added.Houvenaghel only took up cycling six years ago, but won world championship bronze in the individual pursuit and gold in the non-Olympic team event at Manchester in March.Formerly an amateur cross0country runner, she discovered a talent for time-trialling in 2002 not long after she had run the London Marathon for the first time in April of that year.Although being pushed into road time-trialling by her cycling enthusiast husband, she was inspired to take up track cycling after she saw Scotland's Chris Hoy win gold in the kilometre at Athens in 2004.Romero set out to make up for her "disappointing" silver rowing medal from Athens in defiant fashion.Although Houvenaghel led over the first couple of laps of the 250-metre track, the Northern Irishwoman was soon playing catch-up.Romero led after the first kilometre, and held her pace over the next four laps to virtually seal the gold. Houvenaghel raced a faster third lap but by then it was too late.The 33-year-old Houvenaghel finished just over two seconds behind and, even as Romero screamed out in joy as she brandished a Union Jack flag, still had a huge smile on her face.
One of several CNG filling stations between Kanchpur Bridge and Jatrabari of the capital which BNP big shots built on the Kutubkhali canal, drastically reducing Dhaka's drainage capability. PHOTO: STAR
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