Hoy wins keirin gold and first battle

Sir Chris Hoy, seen here riding in the semi-finals, has won gold in the keirin in Manchester. Photograph: Bryn Lennon/Getty Images

Sir Chris Hoy could not have asked for a better beginning to the final winter before he defends his three Olympic gold medals. He opened his 2011-12 account with a national championship gold medal in the keirin, taken in a searing style that suggests there may be some truth in the rumours that he is in stupendous form.

What impressed was the style in which Hoy took gold. He was poorly placed coming into the penultimate lap, in fifth place in the string, and had to fight all the way after making his effort with a lap and a half to go. He had to take the long way round the final banking, above the pack, and he snuck past on the line.

“My top speed is really good just now,” said Hoy. “The strategy was to try and go from the back at one point in the evening, but to do it to win. The crucial thing if you’re going to do that is that you have to be 100% committed. There was no point in trying to jump Jason [Kenny] too soon but I knew when I did it that I had to give it everything.”

If the winter is about Hoy and the European champion, Kenny, fighting for supremacy in the run-up to London, on Friday the first battle went to Hoy, with Kenny fourth behind David Daniell and Philip Hindes, two youngsters. Hoy and Kenny cruised through the opening rounds, with the draw keeping them apart until the final. Hoy no longer relies so heavily on the from-the-front style that won him gold in Beijing and he waited until the bell to make his move in the semi-final. Kenny simply controlled the racing from the front, Hoy-style.

Ross Edgar, the defending champion, had a more torrid time. He was edged out in the qualifying round and forced to fight his way back through the repechage before looking squeezed out with two laps to go in his semi-final. He was forced to fight through the traffic to squeak into third and secure his final slot.

For Hoy, there was relief in getting his winter’s racing under way. He has recently set a personal best in the squat thrust in the gym and he looks trimmer and sharper than a year ago, when he fell ill in national championship week and was forced to pull out. Now, 10 months out from London, he has stripped his engagement calendar to a minimum and is once again “looking at ways of leaving no stone unturned”. What it equated to last night was only his fourth solo national championship medal.

The first final of the night, the women’s points race, fell to Lizzie Armitstead six days after she finished seventh in the world road race championships in Copenhagen. Armitstead is in contention to ride three events in London, the road race, the team pursuit and the omnium, and said on Friday night that rediscovering her track legs here would make the decision between track and road even harder.

In the silver position was another London probable, Laura Trott, Armitstead’s probable rival for an omnium place and one of the gold medal winning trio in the team pursuit in Holland in the spring. The bronze went to another team pursuiter, Jo Rowsell, already crowned individual pursuit champion earlier in the week and clearly back to her best after a low-key winter in 2010-11.

Victoria Pendleton will make her only appearance of the championships on Saturday when she lines up for the team sprint with Jess Varnish, who has emerged as Pendleton’s probable starter in London. Varnish’s hopes of sealing the slot were strengthened on Friday when the only other contender, the BMX star Shanaze Reade, pulled out of Saturday’s championship, which should be a formality for Varnish and Pendleton.

The only issue will be how much Varnish has in the tank for her opening lap. She is clearly in coruscating form, having won the 500 metre time-trial title on Wednesday in a personal best, and on Friday she went all the way to the final in the match sprint, which has been Pendleton’s fiefdom for the past eight years. The latter withdrew late on, however – having also pulled out of the 500 – citing the need to focus on strength training, with her eyes on the European championships in the third week of October.

In the Olympic champion’s absence, the title went to Becky James, who disposed of Varnish in two rides in the final. Together with Varnish, the 19-year-old has been snapping at Pendleton’s heels for a couple of years, in which she has won junior world titles and Commonwealth Games medals. She will start as favourite on Sunday for the keirin motorpaced sprint, from which Pendleton has also withdrawn, but whether she can threaten the Olympic champion for the slot in the event in London will become apparent only in the next few months.