Olympics: Houvenaghel and Romero Set Up All-british Final in Women's Pursuit

Wendy Houvenaghel and Rebecca Romero have between them guaranteed that Great Britain will win tomorrow's only cycling gold medal on the Laoshan velodrome. The pair will contest the women's Olympic 3000m pursuit final after dominating the opening two rounds of the competition in what is remarkable progress since Athens, where the best British woman was Emma Davies in seventh.

Both Britons caught their opponents in their first-round matches yesterday and Romero snatched the British record from Houvenaghel by winning against Katie Mactier of Australia in 3min 27.703sec. The match between the pair tomorrow should extremely tight, with Houvenaghel - who had qualified fastest in a new British best on Friday - just 0.126sec slower for her victory today.

Whether she ends up with silver or gold, Romero will make history tomorrow. She has a chance of adding an Olympic title to the world championship she won in Manchester in March, but is certain to add a second Olympic medal to the rowing silver she won in Athens in 2004.

With just over two years cycling in her legs – Romero only quit rowing in late 2005 – she is set to become the first woman to take medals in two different sports in a summer Games, and only the second British athlete, male or female, to do so.

In the first round today in the Laoshan velodrome, the 28-year-old from Surrey was up in the third heat, against Katie Mactier of Australia. She had caught the world championship bronze medalist on the finish line in Friday's qualifiers and this time she came past the Australian on the final banking after a perfectly paced ride to finish in 3min 27.703sec.

Houvenaghel, who had qualified fastest, a mere fifth of a second faster than her British team-mate, was up against the slowest qualifier, Lada Kozlikova of the Czech Republic. Jests about notorious East European cars up against sports models seem entirely appropriate here: Kozlikova was 2sec down after 1km, and Houvenaghel soon had her in sight, passing her with three laps to go.

Like Romero, the 33-year-old from Northern Ireland is a relative newcomer to cycling having taken up the sport only six years ago, joining the GB team in 2005, since when she has made a steady progression from 5th in her first world championship in Bordeaux the following year.

Romero today said she anticipates a genuine contest with her team-mate in the final. "From my point of view it's bust a gut, fast as you can," she said before adding that it was unlikely the pair would discuss the race beforehand. "We're in the same apartment, we're going to cross paths, we get on fine. It'll be interesting to see, but in the next 24 hours we won't pass each other that much. We've congratulated each other and I think we're just pleased it's two British girls up there taking the top two spots on the podium."

There had been rumors emerging from the British camp that Romero might not be in the form that took her to the world title back in March, and she confirmed yesterday that she had been below par.

"Since the worlds I've had a run of bad luck, ups and downs that you have to deal with it in the right way and I have. All the sorts of things that can go wrong for athletes have done and a few weeks ago I was looking at perhaps not such a good performance. I can take confidence from the fact I've got this far."

Whatever the result, Romero has her place in history. "I have a smile on my face about that," she added of becoming the only British woman to take medals in two different sports in the summer Games. "There's no other medalist at two different sports at two consecutive Olympic Games in the village. I've got that unique aspect. That doesn't take the pressure off. I've got a gold medal to go after and I won't be satisfied until I've got it."

Like Bradley Wiggins the day before, Romero feels that the opposition thus far in the pursuiting in this Games have not come up to scratch. She said yesterday she was "shocked at how they are going. Everyone looks to me like they are just rolling over and dying really, allowing us to get on with it. Watching the qualifiers I was thinking my God what's going on here. I can't explain it."