BEIJING (AP) -Rebecca Romero of Britain took the gold medal in the women's individual pursuit on the cycling track Sunday, beating her compatriot Wendy Houvenaghel. The British men's pursuit team broke the world record on their way to Monday's final.

Romero's was Britain's fourth gold of the five events decided so far at the Laoshan Velodrome. Lesya Kalitovska of Ukraine took the bronze.

"I've done what I said I was going to do. I knew it was going to be the toughest race of my life. I hope I'm not going to wake up,'' said Romero, who becomes the first British woman to take Olympic medals in two different sports. She won a silver medal in rowing in 2004.

Romero had feared her Olympic dream was gone when she arrived in Beijing and in training recorded the slowest time she'd set all year. But she "faced the demons again'' and came through for victory.

Romero said her biggest regret was that her coach, Dan Hunt, couldn't be with her for the final race - because he coaches Houvenaghel as well.

Not long ago, neither Romero nor Houvenaghel had ever sat on a racing bike.

Houvenaghel, a dental surgeon from Northern Ireland, only took up cycling at the age of 27 to keep her husband company on his training rides. She was soon out-racing him.

Romero is an Olympic silver medalist in rowing, but decided two years ago that she wanted a new challenge, so she traveled to Britain's national cycling center in Manchester to have a go at track racing. She was an immediate success, taking the silver medal in the 2007 world championships and then in March of this year becoming world champion.

Britain is targeting as many as eight of the 10 golds available in track cycling, to add to the gold and silver taken by British women in road racing. They also have strong hopes of gold in the women's BMX competition.

Houvenaghel said she was "really proud'' to have won the silver medal, adding "it's great to be one of the top two in the world.''

She said she is still hoping to compete in London in four years, when she will be 37.

If all goes to plan, Britain could win more gold medals in cycling at these games than it did in all sports combined at the Athens Olympics.

It was definitely going to plan in the men's team pursuit.

The team of Ed Clancy, Paul Manning, Geraint Thomas and individual pursuit gold medalist Bradley Wiggins set a world record time of 3 minutes, 55.205 seconds for the 4,000 meters, beating the record set by the same foursome at the world championships in March.

Britain will face Denmark in the final on Monday. Australia and New Zealand will race each other for the bronze.

In the qualifying for the sprint medals, British riders broke the Olympic records for both men and women in the flying 200 meters.

World champion Victoria Pendleton completed the course in 10.863 seconds, coming within .3 of beating the world record that has stood for 15 years. Four riders came inside the previous Olympic record, set in 1996.

Pendleton later easily made it through the next round, along with keirin world champion Jennie Reed of the United States and Anna Meares of Australia, the gold medalist in the now-defunct 500-meters time-trial in Athens.

Pendleton's compatriot, Chris Hoy, was even closer to the world record, setting a time of 9.815 seconds, just .043 seconds short of the time set by Theo Bos of the Netherlands in Moscow in 2006. Hoy already has two gold medals in this competition.

The second British rider, Jason Kenny, was the only other rider to record a time of less than 10 seconds.

As well as Hoy and Kenny, Monday's quarterfinal will include Bos and his compatriot Teun Mulder and the French pair of Kevin Sireau and Mickael Bourgain.

The Dutch have been a powerhouse in track cycling for years, but they have yet to take a medal of any color at these games.

"It's the worst year ever. I don't know why,'' Bos said.

To add to the Dutch woes, team pursuit rider Niki Terpstra crashed while riding from the athletes' village to the velodrome and broke his arm.

Second reserve rider Jens Mouris was called into the team by coach Peter Pieters.

"I was lying in bed when Peter phoned me and asked if I could ride,'' Mouris said.

The Dutch made it through qualifying, but were defeated by Australia in the first round.

The Dutch team appears to be accident-prone. Pieters was also briefly hospitalized earlier in the games after another of the team pursuit riders, Levi Heimans, hit the wheel of the rider in front of him, lost control of his bike, and crashed into Pieters.