Jason Kenny took a significant step towards taking Great Britain's one London Olympics sprint place ahead of Sir Chris Hoy by defeating his team-mate in the Track Cycling World Championships semi-final in Melbourne on Saturday.
Just one of the duo who finished first and second in the 2008 Olympics can represent Britain at the London Games under the one rider or team per nation per event rule.
Prior to the World Championships the team-mates and room-mates each indicated their belief that Melbourne would have a significant bearing on Olympic selection and Kenny won the best-of-three contest 2-0 to advance to the final, where he will meet Gregory Bauge of France.
The 24-year-old from Bolton held off a late charge from Hoy to win by a tyre's width in the first contest and in the second Kenny's speed allowed him to scorch past the Scot, who had taken the early lead. Kenny also beat Hoy in last year's semi-final in Apeldoorn.
Bauge, the 2009 and 2010 world champion, was a convincing 2-0 victor over Australia's Shane Perkins in the second semi-final.
It means a rematch of the 2011 final, when Kenny was beaten 2-0 by the Frenchman, who was later stripped of the title for an anti-doping offence.
Hoy will race Perkins for bronze, while he may yet be denied the chance to defend the sprint Olympic title he won in Beijing four years' ago.
That is for the selectors to decide in the coming months.