Chris Hoy is as surprised as anyone to find himself a contender for three Olympic golds this summer.
In Manchester on Friday night, the 32-year-old became the first to win all four sprint disciplines at World Championship level - adding the individual title to team, keirin and kilometre time-trial successes in previous years. He is also the first Briton to win the men's sprint since Reg Harris in 1954.
Hoy will defend his keirin title today and the Scot looks just about unbeatable at the moment.
He will go to Beijing with legitimate ambitions to win a hat-trick of golds, a startling achievement given his favoured event, the kilometre, was deleted from the Olympic programme after it had made him a champion in Athens.
"I never dreamt I'd win this," he said, after defeating France's Kevin Sireau 2-0 in Friday's best-of-three final.
"My form just seems to be stepping up. But more than my speed, my tactical awareness is getting better.
"That's the confidence I get from having the best coaches."
One of those coaches is the German Jan van Eijden, who won the sprint the last time the worlds were in Manchester.
Hoy added: "I had a little chat with him about his world title and he just said to me, 'Take your opportunities when you can.' And that's what I did."
Hoy's win, coupled with a second gold for Rebecca Romero, means the British team have won six golds, one short of their tally last year, with two days' racing left.
Romero became the first British woman to win two world titles in different sports on Thursday when she added the individual pursuit gold to the rowing medal she won in 2005. On Friday, the 28-year-old won the team pursuit then admitted she had slept with her first medal on her pillow over night.
"Very childish, I know, but it was there right next to me, inspiring me," she said.
"You run through every scenario in your head to prepare yourself for what might happen and only one of those many scenarios is of you winning.
"And you just think, 'Ah, the probability of that happening, these things don't happen to me.'
"But it did happen."
Victoria Pendleton is a good bet to defend her sprint title today after seeing off Holland's Yvonne Hijgenaar in the quarter-finals.
Pendleton, aiming to match the three gold medals she won at last year's worlds, saw her chances improved when Natallia Tsylinskaya of Belarus, the 2006 winner, was taken to hospital following a crash in an earlier round.
And, as well as Hoy's bid for keirin gold, Bradley Wiggins will hope to complete a personal hat-trick of titles at this championship when he teams up with Mark Cavendish in the Madison.
On Sunday, Pendleton is up again in the women's keirin.
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