Maclean (pictured top, left, alongside Kappes) follows in the footsteps of Hungary's Pál Szekeres in winning both an Olympic and Paralympic medal.

The 41-year-old Scot was part of the British sprint team, alongside compatriot and six-times gold medal winner Sir Chris Hoy, which won silver at Sydney 2000.

Szekeres claimed a fencing bronze at Seoul 1988 before winning three golds and three bronze at subsequent Paralympics between Barcelona 1992 and Beijing 2008.

The 47-year-old wheelchair fencer, described as the most successful Paralympian in Hungary, is competing in his sixth Paralympics in London in a bid to further extend his medals tally.

Maclean, who also won nine medals in the World Championships in the team sprint, including gold in 2002, and a Commonwealth Games gold medal at Melbourne in 2006, retired from top-level cycling in 2008 after being bitterly disappointed at being not picked for Britain's team for the Beijing Olympics.

But it led to an approach to him for him to be a pilot for the Paralympic squad which has allowed him to retain a close involvement with the sport.

Maclean then had to sit out international competition for two years until 2010, the mandatory requirement to become a pilot for para-cycling tandem racing

At the 2011 UCI Para-cycling Track World Championships, Maclean piloted Fachie to golds in the Tandem B Sprint and Tandem B 1000m Time Trial but joined Kappes to win those same titles in Los Angeles earlier this year.

There was an added edge to today's race because of the controversial disqualification of Kappes and Maclean, who were the favourites, in yesterday's one kilometre trial, which saw Fachie and Storey take gold.


The victory enabled Kappes, 39, to retain his crown after claiming gold at Beijing 2008 with Storey as his guide.

"It would've been nice to be celebrating the double, but I suppose we've redeemed ourselves a little bit," said Maclean.

"It's always nice to win."

Maclean and Kappes had qualified for the final after setting a world record of 10.05sec before winning both runs in the best-of-three final against Fachie and Storey to claim a comfortable victory.

It was the perfect way for the pair to bounce back after suffering two successive mechanical faults in the individual B 1km time trial, leading to their eventual disqualification.

"We came here to win two gold medals and we've won one – I'm not going to argue about that," said Kappes.

"Racing against Barney and Neil is pretty good and we know what each other can do – we knew it would be the toughest race we'd have."

Maclean added: "I just kept the power on the pedals – I did not know it was quite so convincing until we crossed the line."


Bronze went to Spain's Jose Enrique Porto Lareo and pilot Jose Antonio Villanueva, who had a similarly comfortable time against Japanese pair Tatsuyuki Oshiro and guide Yasafumi Ito.

China claimed the spoils in the mixed C1-5 team sprint final after beating Britain by barely half a second with a world-record time of 49.454 - amazingly the third new world benchmark to be set during the event.

Chinese trio Ji Xiaofei, Liu Xinyang and Xie Hao (pictured above) had bettered Britain's new record by just 0.004 in their heat after Darren Kenny, Rik Waddon and Jon-Allan Butterworth had earlier stopped the clocks at 49.808.

Joseph Berenyi, Sam Kavanagh and Jennifer Schuble claimed bronze for the United States at the expense of the Czech Republic.

For Britain it was disappointment and Butterworth, in particular, may feel aggrieved after claiming three track silver medals but not one gold during these Games – although he has both the C4-5 road race and C5 time trial to look forward to during the next week.

There will also be sorrow for Kenny who finishes his Games without a victory following six in the previous two Paralympics.


Phillipa Gray and pilot Laura Thompson (pictured above), who smashed the world record during qualifying, won the women's individual B pursuit by four seconds ahead of Irish duo Catherine Walsh and guide Francine Meehan.

The Kiwi pair, who had already won bronze in the B 1km time trial, lowered the world benchmark in the B pursuit heats to 3min 31.53sec, beating the previous best almost five seconds.

Aileen McGlynn and pilot Helen Scott beat fellow Britons and Lora Turnham and guide Fiona Duncan by just one second in a thrilling third-place ride-off to claim the bronze medal.

Britain finished top of the medals table at the conclusion of events in the Velodrome.

Both the hosts and China secured five golds but the former finished in top spot after claiming seven silvers to the latter's one.

Australia was third with four golds, two silvers and two bronze.

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September 2012: It's a family affair as Storeys compose Paralympic cycling fairytale
August 2012: World records smashed and controversy at the Velodrome as Britain's Cundy is disqualified
August 2012: Storey wins Britain's first Paralympic gold medal of London 2012