Cycling: Britain Attempt to Match Glory of Melbourne

Bolstered by Tuesday's announcement of a substantial increase in funding to take them through to the Beijing Olympics, Britain's track cyclists take to the Vélodrome du Lac in Bordeaux today for the world championship hoping that they can maintain the form that took them to their best medals total in the Commonwealth Games three weeks ago.

"UK Sport and the government have delivered and there can be no excuses now," said the cycling performance director, Dave Brailsford. "There are not many nations in the world that have the same backing. It's scary because all the obstacles have been removed and there is nothing for us to hide behind."

With the Commonwealth Games and the world championships so close together, Brailsford prioritised the Games. "You can't go on peaking as we did, travel halfway round the world and expect to be as fresh as nations targeting this one event but I'd like to think we can still be competitive," he said.

In the team sprint Great Britain's trio today defend the gold medal they won in Los Angeles last year. Of the Scottish team that beat England for gold in Melbourne, only Chris Hoy will start, at anchor, with Jason Queally and Jamie Staff. Another medal chance comes in the 40km points race, where Chris Newton will be looking to regain the title he took in Copenhagen in 2002.

The Commonwealth bronze medallist Emma Jones races in the 3,000m individual pursuit with Cornwall's Wendy Houvenaghel, and the world sprint champion Victoria Pendleton will race in the 500m individual time-trial before starting the defence of her title tomorrow.

A court in the Italian town of Latina will hold an initial hearing today into the slander case brought in July 2003 by the cyclist Filippo Simeoni against the seven-times Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, whom Simeoni sued for €100,000 (£69,000) for calling him "an absolute liar" in a newspaper interview in April 2003.