Pooley weighs in with silver

British competitor Emma Pooley’s stunning ride earned Britain a second road cycling medal – and their seventh overall of the Beijing Olympics.

Pooley went out fifth in the event and laid down the benchmark with an impressive time of 35 minutes 16.01 seconds on the 23.8km course.

And only American Kristin Armstrong was able to overhaul her at the top, meaning Pooley took a silver to add to Nicole Cooke’s gold in the road race on Sunday.

Cooke herself finished 13th in the time trial event.

Britain failed to make any real impression in the pool on the fifth morning.

The men’s 4x200metres freestyle team had bee regarded as the best chance of a medal in the pool this morning but the quartet of David Carry, Andrew Hunt, Robbie Renwick and Ross Davenport came in sixth in a race won by the USA in a time which shave five seconds off the world record.

The only other British finalist was Caitlin McClatchey in the women’s 200m freestyle, but she also finished in sixth place.

Jemma Lowe suffered major disappointment in her bid to reach the 200m butterfly final as she missed out by just 0.14 seconds despite finishing third in her semi-final.

Ellen Gandy also failed to progress to that final, while Kristopher Gilchrist and Ireland’s Andrew Bree both failed to reach the men’s 200m final.

Bree again beat his Irish record but it was not enough and he said: “You have to go under 2:10 to make the Olympic final and not too long ago that was the world record.

“Swimming has really improved. I’m really happy to be part of it and to be up there. I just wish I was 6ft 7in instead of 6ft 6in!

“It’s been a good few days, yesterday and this morning it was good to get up and race. A coach from Australia said to me a low 2:10 would make the final but it’s obviously faster than that. I’ve definitely learned something from this.

“This is the Olympics not the British championships or something like that everyone steps up, but it was fun and good experience.”

Simon Terry’s hopes of a medal in the men’s individual archery ended after a disastrous final end in his tie with Finland’s Matti Hatava.

Terry, who was seeded seven, had led the contest since the second arrow and was 81-77 ahead going into the last end, but scores of eight, eight and seven allowed the Finn to nip in and win 105-104.

Team-mate Laurence Godfrey was also knocked out in the first round, beaten 114-109 by Bair Badenov of Russia.

Winston Gordon’s bid for gold in the men’s -90kg Judo came unstuck in the preliminary round when he was beaten by Uzbekistan’s Khurshid Nabiev, and he must now wait to see how Nabiev progresses to determine if he earns a repechage spot.

British interest in the fencing came to an end after Richard Kruse was beaten - but he did at least record the solitary British win in Beijing.

Kruse, who reached the quarter-finals of the individual foil four years ago, beat Romania’s Virgil Salscan in his first contest but was then beaten 10-9 by Germany’s Peter Joppich in his last 16 bout.