Jason celebrates Olympics silver success

3:10pm Tuesday 19th August 2008

Bolton's cycling ace Jason Kenny has claimed an individual Olympic silver medal to match the gold he already has from the three man sprint.

Kenny, aged 20, from Farnworth, was up against the awesome power of Salford-based Scot Chris Hoy, and was initially a tearful runner-up in the sprint final at lunchtime.

But Hoy soon cheered him up when he paid fulsome tribute to the Bolton youngster after their contest and predicted: "He'll win in London."

Hoy looked at Kenny as they celebrated their triumph and told a BBC TV interviewer: "He's going to be the best in the world in a very short time."

Kenny, who won gold in the team event with Hoy last week, was delighted with his silver success.

He said: "You turn up at the Olympics and finish second and you think - you know, I'm really very good!"

In the first leg of the best of three race-off in the Laoshan Velodrome, Kenny was just pipped by Hoy despite making a gallant bid for victory.

He was just beaten to the line by Hoy, who completed a hat-trick of golds in this Games by winning the second leg in a similar fashion after Kenny had set the pace and gone for glory early on.

Now it's another four year slog for Kenny before the next Games comes to the capital in 2012.