There was a brief respite in the Great Britain gold rush in Laoshan Velodrome yesterday, when Holland claimed a rare Olympic victory, but it was short-lived. Bradley Wiggins was soon clutching another gold medal, his second of these Games, as he and his colleagues in Britain’s four-man pursuit team demolished the world record once more to claim Team GB’s fifth cycling gold medal in four days.

The British team’s time of 3min 53.314sec left Denmark trailing by almost seven seconds and shaved the best part of two seconds off the global mark that they had reduced by a second only 24 hours earlier. “We thought we might beat the record, but not by three seconds,” Wiggins, who was partnered by Geraint Thomas, Paul Manning and Ed Clancy, said. “We didn’t really know what the Danish would do. We knew the gold wasn’t ours by right and that we had to give our best performance.”

These are heady times for British Cycling, a federation that a decade ago was close to bankruptcy. The rest of the world is standing back and admiring what has become a master-class in sporting excellence. Heiko Salzwedel, the Denmark coach, who worked with Team GB until 2003, described the battle to keep up with Britain’s cyclists as “David against Goliath”.

Yet, despite the victory and the world record, Wiggins admitted that his performance in the team pursuit qualifying races had frustrated him. “I wasn’t my usual self after the individual pursuit,” he said. “I was disappointed and didn’t want to let these guys down. I know how much they have sacrificed for this one event.”

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The 28-year-old, who is competing in his third Olympics, paid tribute to the efforts of his teammates, Clancy, 23, and Thomas, 22. “They don’t seem to know what the word fear means,” he said. “They’re just young kids, naive as to what they have achieved. They’re going to go out tonight and lap it up until Christmas. Paul [Manning] and I have a bit more sense of how far we have come.”

Rebecca Romero, the gold medal-winner in the women’s individual pursuit, was unsuccessful in her long shot at a second medal. The 28-year-old, riding the points race for only the second time, lacked the experience and sprinting power to break free of the peloton and, despite featuring in several attacks, finished eleventh.

“I hadn’t done any training for it,” she said. “I had a go at it, but this was the fourth day in a row to go through race preparation and it was tough.”

Further medals for Britain are expected today, when Chris Hoy, Jason Kenny and Victoria Pendleton line up for the men’s and women’s sprint semi-finals, and Mark Cavendish, who won four stages in the Tour de France, takes to the boards in the Madison in support of Wiggins’s campaign to win a third gold medal.

With one day of track racing remaining, Britain have dominated to the extent that Australia, who were the superior nation at the Athens Olympics, are nowhere to be seen, unable even to defeat New Zealand in the team pursuit bronze-medal race.

“The Brits have set the standard,” Shayne Bannen, the Australia head coach, said. “What they have done here has been incredible, but great to watch. They’ve really made the other countries sit up and think.”

Despite Marianne Vos’s victory in the women’s points race, the Dutch squad seemed deflated by Team GB’s supremacy. “Does it make any sense to carry on for four more years when you see what the British are doing?” Theo Bos, their star sprinter, said.

Podium Prospects

Today

Madison Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish, the world champions in the event, are the pairing to beat in the 200-lap race (10.30am BST)

Women's sprint Victoria Pendleton, the world champion, races against Willy Kanis, of Holland, to reach the race for gold (11.25am)

Men's sprint Chris Hoy, the winner of two gold medals already, takes on Mickael Bourgain, of France, and Jason Kenny faces Maximilian Levy, of Germany. The British pair could meet in the final (11.35am)

Thursday

BMX Shanaze Reade, the world champion, is the clear favourite in the women's race (2am)