Anna Meares took her week's tally of gold medals to three as she led the Australian team to the top of the standings after the second round of the UCI Track World Cup which ended in Melbourne tonight.
The home team won the round with five gold, one silver and two bronze medals ahead of New Zealand who claimed four gold, one silver and one bronze. Australia's Team Jayco slotted into third place with three gold and one silver medal.
Australia's 'Queen of the track' kicked off the night by riding the second fastest time in history to win the 500 metre time trial in 33.583sec ahead of Sydney's Kaarle McCulloch who took the silver medal for Team Jayco in a time of 34.267sec. French rider Sandie Clair was third in 34.339sec.
But there was no time to celebrate in a program that had the women back on their bikes soon after for the second round of the women's keirin. Meares and McCulloch went one-two in the heat to both qualify for the final.
"I was a bit worried about the load with the program this evening," said an elated Meares. "Once the 500 was out of the way it was just straight up to the keirin.
"I was tired and I was hurting but bumped the gear up and I actually felt half decent."
A crash in the keirin at a World Cup round in January 2008 almost ended Meares' career and her fightback to an Olympic silver medal in Beijing inspired a nation.
Tonight she demonstrated she is well and truly over that with a resounding win by more than two bike lengths to China's Shuang Guo with Christin Muche of Germany third. But Meares' win came after she was forced to readjust her race plan on the fly.
"I wanted the motorbike (the pace bike riders must stay behind until 750m to go) but the motorbike came through really slowly in the final as compared to the last two rounds and it stuffed me," said Meares who wasn't able to get to the front as planned.
"I had to go to the back and (then)I just went for broke and pulled it off."
Meares admits that winning the keirin is significant for her.
"In a big way, it's really a matter of one, riding keirin to get comfortable and two, adapting, adapting to new gears new race styles and adapting when things don't go to plan like that one and that's something that's hard for me to do cause not always the most patient of people."
While Meares was celebrating her second gold medal of the night Team Jayco's Shane Perkins was on fire in the men's sprint final against Frenchman Kevin Sireau.
Perkins had won the first of the possible three races and was out to make it straight heats.
For a brief moment the Melbourne fans held their collective breath as Sireau accelerated off the front. But the the Frenchman made a tactical mistake and Perkins pounced to seize the advantage and the gold medal.
"The home town crowd really gave me the advantage because my legs were a bit tired," said Perkins who had needed three heats to dispose of Ross Edgar in the semi final.
"We then had to reassess our tactics and it paid off against Sireau.
"I was either going under or over if he left the door open, I was going for it and I did," said Perkins who also won the sprint at last year's Melbourne World Cup and along with Dan Ellis and Scott Sunderland won the team sprint on Thursday.
"Luckily Sireau's a fantastic guy who saw I had him and didn't ride me down the track and cause a crash.
"I don't know what else I can say, I've got the gold and I'm very, very happy."
The Australian trio of Josephine Tomic, Sarah Kent and Ashlee Ankudinoff knocked close to a second off their qualifying time to defeat the Ukraine for the bronze medal in the women's team pursuit. The Australians clocked 3min26.869sec to the Ukraine's 3:30.156.
“The best thing is that we are slowly closing the gap between ourselves and the Brits and New Zealand because in Manchester (World Cup last month) they beat us by seven seconds so it’s less than two now and that's pretty good," said Tomic.
"I am sure after a bit more experience together we will be able to get them.”New Zealand clocked 3min21.171sec in the final to defeat Great Britain (3:25.938) for the gold medal
In the men's 40km Madison, three teams took a lap with New Zealand’s Marc Ryan nd Tom Scully finishing strongly to take the gold medal on 15 points ahead of Germany’s Robert Bengsch and Marcel Kalz (8 points), with the Ukraine’s Sergiy Lagkuti and Mykhaylo Radionov (5 points) in third place.
At the end of two of the four round World Cup series Australia is sitting on top of the standings with 210 points ahead of Great Britain on 199 points and Germany on 189 points.
