VERWOOD cycling sensation Darren Kenny made it a golden double at the Athens Paralympics after smashing another world record en route to winning the 3km individual pursuit.

Having picked up gold in the CP div 3-4 1km time trial on Saturday, the 34-year-old demolished Spain's Javier Otxoa in yesterday's final, winning in a record time of 3:46.260, with the Spaniard a distant eight seconds behind.

Kenny, who is a member of the Bournemouth Fircroft Arrow Hotel club, led the final from start to finish, racing away to an early lead of more than two seconds by the 1km mark. He had almost doubled that lead by 2km and never looked in danger of relinquishing his grip on a second gold medal.

He smashed the world record Otxoa had set in Sunday's qualification round by a staggering 11 seconds and took almost 27 seconds off the previous world best.

"This feels fantastic and I'm going to enjoy every second of it," beamed a jubilant Kenny. "I was blown away by winning my first gold, but I couldn't really enjoy it because I had today's race to think about. The crowd was absolutely fantastic and they really lifted me. I just took it to another level. I can't believe the time, I don't know where it came from."

Golden boy Kenny now aims to make it a hat-trick of triumphs as he takes to the road for the time trials later in the week.

But there was disappointment for another Bournemouth cyclist, Barney Storey, formerly of Bournemouth Jubilee Wheelers, who missed out on the medals in the B1-3 tandem sprint with partner Dan Gordon as they finished in sixth.

First published: Sept 21