My namesake, Samuel Sanchez, produced a brilliant sprint finish to win Spain’s first ever road cycling road gold medal at the Olympics. The gruelling 245km was won in 6:23.49hours. That’s longer than four soccer matches, or eight basketball games.

>However, and I don’t claim to be a road race expert, I was intrigued to see 2004 Olympic champion and pre-race favourite Paulo Bettini cruising along at the start holding onto the open window of a driving car, discussing tactics with his coaches. I was further bemused when other cyclists were tapping him on the shoulder and joking and smiling with him. I just couldn’t understand how this was legal - I mean, Paulo was only one step short of throwing his bike onto a roof rack and hopping into the car. It evidently gave him little advantage though as he slipped outside of the medals. Perhaps he should switch to Formula One.

>His fellow Italian had good reason to celebrate. On his 37th birthday Fabian Cancellara sped to a silver medal. It just goes to show that age is no barrier when it comes to producing phenomenal ultra-endurance. Hats off to these men who had to cycle for over six hours on Beijing’s hottest, most humid day all week. Apart from Paulo, of course.

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