The 33-year-old (pictured above) was visibly furious after his disqualification, throwing things at the floor in the centre of the Velodrome.

As he was forced to accept his fate, Cundy yelled at television cameras: "I've just wasted four f****** years of my f****** life."

He had been hoping to add to his two cycling golds from Beijing and previous three Paralympic swimming titles.

Cundy was the last to ride in the event, but experienced difficulty at the starting gate which was ruled to be caused by his error rather than a technical malfunction resulting in disqualification.

The news of Cundy's disqualification was met with dismay by the boisterous home crowd.

Boos rang around the arena as Spain's Alfonso Cabello was announced the winner.

This was a turn of events, as earlier Cabello had brought out some of the loudest cheers for a non-British rider heard here so far for his simply brilliant performance.

Cabello smashed the world record with one of the most thrilling pieces of action of the whole day, travelling faster and faster still, recording a time of 1min 05.947sec.


Britain's Jon Butterworth (pictured above), racing the Spaniard for the gold, responded, as did the crowd, who roared him around the track, but he just missed out on the gold by just the narrowest of margins – 0.038 seconds.

Liu Xinyang of China, with a time of 1:07.638, took the bronze, but the last of Cundy's disqualification had not been heard.

"I'm in the absolute form of my life and in the shape to win the gold medal," said Cundy.

"I got into the start the same as I've done very time.

"I just sat there waiting to have the signal that I was about to ride again.

"I knew things were not quite right and the next thing I saw on the scoreboard was a 'DNF' [Did Not Finish] next to my name
.

"I saw my coaches and managers all moving off at which point my coach came back and said that was it – that was my 1km time trial at a home Paralympic Games over.

"I kind of lost it, I am not proud about it, but the amount of hard work and effort to get me into this condition to be at the top of my game.

"I was pretty angry and said a few choice words over and over again at the top of my voice.


"I would like to apologise to the International Cycling Union (UCI), International Paralympic Committee (IPC), and all the spectators and guys watching on TV – a big apology from me.

"Hopefully I come back tomorrow and we can move on from this."

The UCI's technical delegate Louis Barbeau said afterwards that there had to be "a puncture, a fall or the breakage of an essential part of the bicycle" for a restart.

Cundy did not agree with Barbeau's reading of the situation, and responded by questioning the clarity of the UCI's rules.

"He is entitled to that opinion," he said.

"I know exactly what happened, I do starts so many times in training and it is only once in a blue moon you get something wrong like that.

"I do not think I have ever been so focused sat on that start gate.

"Unfortunately I got five metres and that was it.

"I believe the rules need clarifying and clearing up so there is no ambiguity between officials...and the riders.

"In cycling you have mechanical things that can go wrong so it is fair enough to have that mishap rule but it just needs rewriting so all riders knows what that is.

"It is just one of those things – the vagueness in the rule does not help."

Meanwhile, Britain's Mark Colbourne (pictured above, centre) gave the crowd something positive to cheer as he broke the world record for the second time in the same day.

Fresh from his silver medal yesterday in the individual C1-2-3 1km time trial, he smashed the world record this morning with a time of 3:53.970 in the individual C1 pursuit, to qualify ahead of China's Zhang Yu Li (pictured above, right).


Li had won yesterday's time trial, started the final this afternoon in control and had soon built up a one second lead.

After 750 metres Colbourne started to catch the Chinese cyclist and half way through the race he had taken a lead he never looked in danger of losing.

As the race came to an end it was a question of whether the race would last the distance with Colbourne coming close to overtaking Li, but his time of 3:53.881 was still yet another world record.

Argentina's Rodrigo Fernando Lopez (pictured two images above, left) took third at the expense of Germany's Michael Teuber.

In the morning's session, Australian World champion Felicity Johnson and Stephanie Morton (both pictured above) claimed the women's individual 1 kilometre time trial gold medal in a Paralympic record time of 1:08.919.

They pushed British pair Aileen McGlynn, who had won gold at the last two Paralympics, and Helen Scott into second by just half a second, while New Zealand's Phillipa Gray and Laura Thompson took bronze.

"I could feel them nipping at our heels and it was great motivation for us to come in and try our best, considering it's their home turf and the track is really fast," Johnson said afterwards.


"I tried to let Flick know that we'd won because the crowd goes off and she can't quite see the scoreboard, but I think she knew."

Liang Guihua (pictured above, centre) of China qualified fastest for the individual C2 pursuit gold medal race with a world record time of 3:45.828.

He beat Tobias Graf (pictured above, left) in the final, a day after the German won the bronze medal in the individual C1-2-3 time trial pursuit.

Third place went to France's Laurent Thirionet (pictured above, right), who beat Ireland's Colin Lynch by just over a second.

There was another world record broken in qualifying for the C3 final, with America's Joseph Berenyi clocking 3:36.148 on his way to a showdown with Britain's Shaun McKeown in the final.

McKeown denied reigning Paralympic champion Darren Kenny a chance of gold with his time in the morning, but was unable to catch Berenyi in the final and settled for silver.

Kenny will have mixed feelings and consider what might have been after claiming bronze with the fastest time of the entire event, setting a world record of 3:35.257.

To read David Gold: Footballers are reviled for their bad tempers, so why are Olympians and Paralympians forgiven? click here.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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