Australian men, US women defend team pursuit titles

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The second day of action at the Track World Championships in Hong Kong saw some surprises with Poland’s Adrian Teklinsky launching a daring attack to win the scratch race, while crowd favourite Azizulhasni Awang won gold in the Keirin after 10 years of trying. In the women’s sprint, Kaarle McCulloch tumbled out of the competition in the quarterfinals after being beaten by home rider Wai Sze Lee in two straight bouts.

There were some less surprising results in the team pursuit competitions as defending champions USA bettered Australia in the women’s competition, while the Australian men smashed the competition to take gold.

Australia led the way from the opening rounds of the competition, coming close to the world record in qualifying on day one. They were somewhat slower in round one, but it was more than enough to beat a labouring France and put them into the gold medal ride against New Zealand. Cameron Meyer sat out the round one race but was brought back in for the final, which proved to be a good decision as Australia beat New Zealand by two seconds. Italy bettered Great Britain to take the bronze medal.

Splitting the men’s team pursuit final and the men’s scratch race was the quarter finals of the women’s sprint. All four heats went down in two duels and all but one went as expected. Kristina Vogel, Simona Krupeckaite and Stephanie Morton won their efforts but Lee upset the formbook to topple McCulloch for a semi-final spot.

The 15km scratch race was aggressive from the start, but it wasn’t until Teklinski tried his luck with six laps to go that anybody got a serious gap on the peloton. Teklinski got an immediate gap and stretched it out to half a lap in no time. The chase organised behind, but that initial advantage proved to be sufficient to make him the new world champion. A last ditch push from Lucas Liss (Germany) saw him take silver, while Chris Latham (Great Britain) nipped in to take the final podium spot.

Awang also made use of the element of surprise when he launched his sprint earlier than anyone in the men’s Keirin; he even pulled a wheelie as he dived for the line. Colombia’s Fabian Hernando Puerta Zapata took second, while the Czech Republic’s Tomas Babek rounded out the podium. Australia’s Matthew Glaetzer had been the overwhelming favourite for the title but could only manage fourth place after getting boxed in. Defending champion Joachim Eilers and Francois Pervis missed out on the final after they were both relegated in their respective second round heats for ‘irregular movement’.

The final medal of the day was up for grabs in the women’s team pursuit as the US went up against Australia for the gold medal. The two teams remained close throughout the whole four kilometres, but the US maintained the edge at each split to win by four hundredths of a second. New Zealand took bronze after a strong looking Italy fractured in the final laps.

Action will resume on Friday with the men’s and women’s sprint competitions, the women’s omnium, the men’s points race and the men’s individual pursuit.

Full Results