Four-time Olympic gold medallist Sir Chris Hoy confirmed the boss is back by dipping under the magic ten second mark during sprint qualification at the National Championships in Manchester.

How – who added sprint, team sprint and keirin gold in Beijing to his Athens kilo triumph – missed the 2009 World Championships after a suffering a hip injury in March.

But the 33-year-old flying Scot returned to action on home soil in emphatic fashion, clocking 9.990 seconds ahead of Matt Crampton and Jason Kenny – who took sprint silver behind Hoy in China.

Hoy covered the 200m distance at 44.753mph in time-trial qualifying and the top 12 will compete in a knock-out format later on Thursday.