Australians wrap up World Cup track win

• Results

Australia’s national team won the Melbourne round of the UCI Track Cycling World Cup Classics series here on Saturday.

The Australian Cyclones, with 112 points, edged out compatriots Team Toshiba, which scored 98 points over three days of competition. Although an impressive performance, the win came in light of only limited participation by the world’s strongest track squad, the British national team.

Australian Shane Perkins went one better than his Manchester World Cup silver earlier this month to claim the men’s sprint with a straight heats win over Frenchman Michael D’Almedia.

“Australia have done a fantastic job of (dealing with) the pressure of a World Cup in Australia and we have come out with some awesome results,” said Perkins. “I wasn’t stopping tonight, I was just going for it.”

The bronze medal match up was also a France – Australia showdown with Team Toshiba’s Jason Niblett making light work of Francois Pervis.

In the men’s 40km Madison, despite a slow start, Australia’s Cameron Meyer and CJ Sutton recovered to claim silver on the final sprint. The pair set the pace early, but numerous attacks from the highly favoured Team Toshiba duo of Glenn O’Shea and Leigh Howard saw them win three of the first four sprints.

But the pair were left behind when after claiming his team’s first points in the fifth sprint, Meyer attacked and lapped the field. Spain’s Unai Elorrriage Zubiaur and David Muntaner Juaneda and the German team of Henning Bommel and Fabian Schaar took a lap soon after and Howard and O’Shea were unable to regain the lost ground.

Heading into the final sprint Spain had the gold medal locked up but the Sutton/Meyer combination was tied on points with Germany. Meyer attacked again on the last lap and held on for fourth place across the line and the one point needed to edge clear of Germany for silver.

“It took a while for me and CJ to get the feel of it because we didn’t have any points early and we knew we had to sit back and wait for a moment to hit them really hard,” Meyer said. “When I hit them, I had the legs and I went as hard as I could and I thought I’m not going to wait.

“We finished off well and beat the Germans in the last sprint, which showed some character finishing it.”

Sutton, 24, praised his younger teammate.

“Cam’s a class bike rider and even though I’m a bit older than him, he’s got more experience than me racing at this world cup level,” said Sutton. “I said to him, don’t worry mate, we’ll finish fourth or better, and we ended up coming second. We couldn’t be happier.”

Great Britain’s Elizabeth Armitstead, Katie Colclough and Joanna Rowsell claimed the women’s team pursuit in 3:29.890 ahead of Australia’s Josephine Tomic, Sarah Kent and Ashlee Ankudin (3:30.506).

Willy Kanis of the Netherlands took the women’s 500m time trial, posting a time of 34.657 with Jie Jie Gong of China (34.676) second.

Kanis proved too strong for the field in the women’s keirin final for her second gold medal of the night. Italy’s Elisa Frisoni took the silver medal, with Christin Muche of Germany collecting bronze.

The Melbourne World Cup was the second round of the 2008-2009 UCI Track Cycling World Cup series and featured around 180 cyclists from 31 nations in action in 17 events over three days of racing.

Results

Men
Sprint
1. Shane Perkins (AUS)
2. Micha‘l D’Almeida (FRA)
3. Jason Niblett (Team Toshiba)

Madison (40km)
1. Spain (Unai Elorriaga Zubiaur/David Muntaner Juaneda) 19 pts
2. Australia (Cameron Meyer/Christopher Sutton) 7
3. Germany (Henning Bommel/Fabian Schaar) 6

Women
500m time trial
1. Willy Kanis (NED) 34.657
2. Gong Jinjie (CHN) 34.676
3. Kaarle McCulloch (Team Toshiba) 34.844

Team pursuit (3000m)
1. Great Britain (Elizabeth Armitstead/Katie Colclough/Joanna Rowsell)
3:29.890
2. Australia (Ashlee Ankudinoff/Sarah Kent/Josephine Tomic) 3:30.506
3. Ukraine (Svitlana Galyuk/Lesya Kalitovska/Lyubov Shulika) 3:34.842

Keirin
1. Willy Kanis (NED)
2. Elisa Frisoni (ITA)
3. Christin Muche (GER)

World standings after two legs
1. Great Britain, 133-36 169
2. Germany, 92-56 148
3. Australia, 10-112 122
4. Ukraine, 51-67 118
5. Spain, 49-66 115
6. Team Toshiba, 12-98 110
7. Netherlands, 41-60 101
8. Russia, 45-55 100
9. China, 41-38 79

FILED UNDER: Race Report / Race Result / Track