Graphic: how the race was won

As God Save The Queen rang out across the Laoshan Velodrome last night, Gérard Quintyn, the France coach, looked on. “They are too strong, they are unbeatable,” he said as Jamie Staff, Jason Kenny and Chris Hoy clutched their gold medals.

Yesterday, in the opening session of Olympic track racing, Great Britain's cyclists kept their promise to deliver. There may have been only one gold medal on offer, but in the team sprint the Britain trio seized it with aplomb and at record speed, leaving France and Germany resigned to silver and bronze respectively as the golden era in British cycling continued.

In individual pursuit qualifying it was a similar story as Bradley Wiggins, Wendy Houvenaghel and Rebecca Romero set times that put them out of reach of their rivals. Their finals are to come. Shane Sutton, the Team GB coach, believes that at least five gold medals are possible in track racing. After yesterday's masterclass in sprinting and pursuiting, the Australian's estimate may be conservative.

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Staff, Kenny and Hoy used brawn and brain to muscle their way to gold. Wearing custom-made rubber skinsuits that Chris Boardman, the technical adviser to Team GB, likened to swimwear, the sprinters did not look back after knocking the stuffing out of their rivals with a world-record time in their first qualifying heat.

That first eye-opening appearance set the tone for every Britain rider. After that there was no doubt which nation would win the first Olympic title of these five days of racing. Silver medal-winners in the team sprint at the Sydney Olympics in 2000, Hoy and his colleagues were a frustrated fifth in Athens four years ago. Yesterday, as the French bickered over team selection, they made amends.

In the semi-finals the United States provided frail opposition. Fittingly, it was France, who were triumphant at Britain's expense in the World Championships in Manchester in March and a longstanding obstacle to team sprint gold, who fell victim to the Britain trio's irresistible speed as Hoy celebrated the second Olympic gold of his career.

“Compared to Athens, this is night and day,” the Scot, who won the kilometre time-trial four years ago, said. “That disappointment drove us on. Everyone in the team has been performing at a level beyond what they have ever done. Our form has gone through the roof. It's very rare to get three riders in the form of their lives on the same day.”

This kind of form does not come easily. Team sprinting is about controlled power, something gained through long hours in the gym, and, as Boardman put it, “eating plenty of cows”. Protein and carbohydrate, allied to specific weight-training sessions, fuel their engines, yet there was more than beef at the heart of this victory, according to Staff, a former world BMX champion.

“We know how to play to our strengths and how to learn from each other,” he said. “That's been the key to our continuing improvement. We did our own jobs, but we've also looked at how we could improve the team.”

Hoy shares a birthday with Kenny and the 20-year-old from Bolton, who was given only 24 hours' notice of his selection over Ross Edgar, has an excellent mentor. The muscle-bound Hoy has an honorary doctorate from Edinburgh University and a Corinthian attitude to competition.

An outspoken critic of drugs in sport, Hoy was among the British Olympians who signed the petition against the waiving of Dwain Chambers's lifetime ban and last night he made a point of paying tribute to his French rivals for providing such tough opposition.

His first gold won, he will target the men's keirin and individual match sprint. At 32, the Edinburgh-born sprinter is at the peak of his redoubtable powers. Staff, 35, acknowledged that Beijing may be his final Olympic appearance. “Racing in London would be amazing, but realistically I think I have two, maybe three years left,” he said. That is a shame for Staff, whose longstanding Olympic ambitions have finally been fulfilled, but with competitors such as Kenny and Edgar, the fourth man, Team GB's sprinting tradition is in good hands.

“It's a sign of the times that the level is so high that we have left good riders out,” Hoy said.It is also a sign of the times, that after only one session of racing in the Olympic velodrome, France, Australia, Holland and Germany, the traditional nations of track racing, appear resigned to defeat after defeat.

Like Nicole Cooke's victory in the women's road race, success in the team sprint over the fractious French was a long-awaited landmark moment. Another threshold has now been crossed and further medals are expected today in the men's individual pursuit.

From here on, as Hoy said last night, anything seems possible.