The boys are back in town. Thin Lizzy blared out across the London velodrome as Mark Cavendish and Bradley Wiggins laughed, hugged, picked each other up, shared piggybacks, and simply soaked up as much as possible of an emotionally-charged evening.
Heading anti-clockwise, the duo wound back the clock over the course of 200 laps of the track, winning the Madison world title just as they had done on home turf eight years ago. Like that night in Manchester in 2008, victory came thanks to a long, long lap-take late into the race, and it produced decibel counts this arena hasn't heard since the Olympic Games four years ago.
"You couldn't have written a better script," said Wiggins. "It was like déja vu back to eight years ago."
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This was the first time the pair had ridden the two-man track event together at elite level since the disaster that was the Beijing Olympics, where the pair could only manage ninth and Cavendish left bitter and disappointed – the only British rider to come away without a medal.
This victory, then, had a cathartic and redemptive quality to it. More than that, though, it was an occasion bathed in nostalgia. Eight years. A chance to reflect on all that has happened in that time.
"When we won our first title together we hadn't won a Tour de France stage between us," Cavendish noted as he joined Wiggins in front of the press.
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