As if the all-British race-off for gold and silver between Rebecca Romero and Wendy Houvenaghel was not sufficient, there were other significant marks set in qualifying yesterday on the Laoshan Velodrome track. In the women’s sprint, Victoria Pendleton set an Olympic record, in the men’s sprint Chris Hoy did likewise and, to round off the day and send their supporters home happy, the men’s pursuit team broke a world record.

If they were not already, the above are all now favourites to win gold in the next two days. That is to add to the four golds from five track events that are hung round British necks so far. It is not surprising, then, that in the paddock in the centre of the track, a number of foreign coaches have been to the Team GB corner and asked: “Are you going to leave anything to the rest of us?”

Romero’s comment that “everyone else looks to me like they are rolling over and dying” may be a little harsh, but the sense of overwhelming British dominance that set in here on Saturday has taken a firm hold.

The sport is being held in a most un-British, vice-like grip. While the Britons’ challenge — to improve from their conquering World Championships in March — has been met head-on, other nations appear to be in reverse. The Dutch have had a calamitous Olympics — they lost one rider yesterday in an accident when he was cycling to the velodrome, crashed with his team-mate and broke both arms — and they then nearly lost Theo Bos, their sprint king, who has been so disappointed with his form that he threatened to book an early flight home. Of the British, Bos said: “It looks like they have swallowed a motorbike.”

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News has spread beyond the velodrome itself. Steve Waugh, the former Australia cricket captain, is here as a mentor to a number of Australian athletes and, in the Athletes’ Village on Saturday, he went out of his way to tell Shane Sutton, a compatriot on the British coaching staff, that what the British cyclists were doing was “unbelievable”. “And that was Steve Waugh,” Sutton said. “He’s like a hero to me.”

As Britain edge ahead of Australia in the medals table, the comparison carries significance. By this time in the cycling at the previous Olympics, Australia had two golds, two silvers and a bronze with three other golds to come. So far in Beijing, their cyclists have managed two fourths.

“In the last eight years, Britain have really turned it round,” Ryan Bayley, the Australian who won keirin gold in Athens, said. “They were the laughing stock of the pit and now we are laughing because we can’t beat them.”

There is clearly a whiff of envy in the air, too. “We Australians have got a lot of heart,” Bayley said, “but we don’t have the funding of the British. They have the Australian sports scientist who was ours [Grant White] ,they’ve got a German sprint coach who was one of the most tactical riders ever [Jan van Eiden]. Basically they can buy whatever they want whenever they want. Nothing much has changed in our equipment since the last Olympics, but they are cutting edge and they can do everything.”

That is certainly how it appears here. Two months ago, Steven Burke was such an outsider he was not expecting to go to Beijing, but on Saturday he won bronze in the individual pursuit. As he was coming off the track, Bradley Wiggins was going on — en route to gold. As Wiggins and Burke stood for their medal ceremony, Hoy was waiting for the final of his event, which he also would win.

The glory baton seems to be handed on from one rider to the next. The favourites are winning golds and their team-mates are picking up bonus silvers and bronzes.

The question therefore rises: has any British squad ever held sway over a sport in this way? A kind of answer was offered yesterday by Jesper Wolde, who is leading the Denmark team here. “It is not good for the sport if one country dominates too much,” he said. “And the British are getting close.”

Incidentally, it is Wolde’s Denmark who go against Britain in the team pursuit final today. “We did a good time today,” Wolde said, with a shrug, of his team’s pursuit time. “But they [Great Britain] did a world record.”

What would really cap it today would be Romero succeeding in the points race, an event that she has only ever raced once and no one has ever considered a serious medal possibility. “But all the athletes have medalled in every event,” she said. “That’s going to be my motivation, not being the loser.” So maybe we should start to consider her seriously. No one, so far, has dropped the glory baton.