Britain finishes dominating cycling effort

BEIJING, Aug. 19 (UPI) -- Victories by Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton Tuesday finished off Britain's amazing run through the Olympic track cycling events.

They both won sprint races to boost Britain's gold medal total to seven in the nine track cycling races contested.

Britain has won 15 gold medals at these Olympics, surpassing that country's total in all other Games except the 1908 edition -- which was held in London and almost amounted to a British intersquad contest. Britain won 56 gold medals that year.

Hoy won the men's sprint in a match with teammate Jason Kenny. Pendleton defeated Anna Meares of Australia in the women's final.

In the other race on the final day of track cycling, the Argentine team of Juan Esteban Curuchet and Walter Fernando Perez won the Madison event. The Madison is the team version of the individual points race and provided Argentina with its first gold medal of the Olympics.

Argentina became the 44th nation with at least one gold in Beijing.