UCI Track World Cup # 2 - Melbourne Day 1
First day of Action in the Hisense Velodrome Awards Gold Medals in Six Events. Australia takes the early lead

Australia's Cameron Meyer, Anna Meares and Team Jayco   Kiwi Jesse Sergent, Britain's Wendy Houvenaghel, Russia's Evgeniya Romanyuta All Claim Gold Medals in the first day of action at HIsense Arena.

The second round of the track world cup started at Hisense Arena in the heart of Melbourne today. Day one on the program saw the points race, women’s sprint, men’s team sprint, women’s scratch race, women’s individual pursuit and the men’s individual pursuit.

Australian cyclists from young gun Cameron Meyer to experienced campaigner Anna Meares were on show today including other top cyclists like Shuang Guo, Allison Shanks, Wendy Houvehaghel and Chris Newton among others.

Qualifying Rounds
The points race qualifying was first on the program and all the favourites were through to the final. Australian and world champion Cameron Meyer headlined the cyclists which featured British rider Chris Newton, German Michael Freiburg, Russian Ivan Kovalev and Polish rider Lukasz Bujko.

There were no surprises in the Women’s Individual Pursuit qualifying with all the favourites making it through. British rider Wendy Houvenaghel and Kiwi Alison Shanks qualified top two and were set for the gold medal showdown. Australian Josephine Tomic and Ukrainian cyclist Lesya Kalitovska rounded out the top four and were in the race for the Bronze.

The men’s individual pursuit saw young Australian Rohan Dennis set the fastest time in 4:19:255. To go under 4:20 was a phenomenal effort and he was joined by Kiwi Jesse Sergent in the final who posted a time of 4:19:937. Levi Heimens from the Netherlands and Vitaliy Shchedov from Ukraine were the next two fastest with a time of 4:28:583 and 4:28:625 respectively.

In the men’s team sprint, Team Jayco qualified fastest with a time of 44.449 with Germany second fastest in 44.473. Third fastest was Russia in a time of 45.010 and the Australian team was 45.452 and those teams would fight out the bronze medal in the night session.

Anna Meares and Shuang Guo were set to continue their rivalry in the Women’s sprint. All favourites qualified and made it to the quarter finals. Shuang Guo was up against Frenchwoman Clara Sanchez. Guo qualified for the semi’s easily taking the first two opportunities out of three. Netherlands Willy Kanis was up against compatriot Yvonne Hugenaar and won 2-0. Anna Meares was up against German Christin Muche and likewise with the other two, won 2-0. Finally young Australian Kaarle McCullock was up against China’s Jinjie Gong and that match also was 2-0 in favour of the Australian.

In the semi finals, Guo was up against McCulloch and easily accounted for the young Australian only needing two races. Meares was up against Kanis and only needed two races to account for the Dutch girl setting up another showdown that in the gold medal race against rival Shuang Guo. The Bronze race was between Kanis and McCulloch.

Finals
Men’s Points Race:
The Men’s points race was the first event to kick start the program with World Champion Cameron Meyer the favourite to take the race. However, being the world champion comes with a target on your back and Meyer had to find a way to handle the pressure and not be bullied. The first out of 12 sprints was taken by Viktor Shmalko who attacked with Tristan Marquet claiming the three points for second with Cameron Meyer claiming two for third and Muhammad Othman claiming the single point for fourth place.

The pace was hot early with Russian Ivan Kovalev attacking and winning the next sprint ahead of Brittian’s Chris Newton, New Zealand’s Thomas Scully and Netherlands Van Der Zwet. Kovalev attacked again and wanted to send a message out that he was going to upstage everyone. Then Meyer tried to attack and each time, he was brought back to the bunch.

The bunch momentarily then split up with Meyer charging off the front bringing Newton and three others with him. That split was only short lived lasting only a few laps. At the halfway mark, Greek rider Ioannis Tamouridis was leading with ten points ahead of Newton on nine and Meyer, Ciccione, Freiberg and Kovalev all together on five points. But the racing was far from done.

A few sprints later, the leaderboard was clogged up with Freiberg on 25 points with Argentinian Fernando Perez on 23 points and Lukasz Bujko, the Polish cyclist on 22 points and Japan’s Kazuhiro Mori on 21 points. Newton and Meyer were well back and not in the picture, but with 5 sprints to go, they had enough time to make the difference up.

After 8 laps, Newton lapped the field and moved to 16, nine off Freiberg. Now the race was starting to heat up with the next sprints bringing the field even closer and when Cameron Meyer and Ioannis Tamouridis attacked off the front to try and gain a lap and collect ten points, the race was far from over.

The two worked well together and were out the front for over 15 laps gaining metres on their opponents lap after lap. Finally with cheers from a couple hundred Aussie supporters, Meyer caught the pack and with one sprint to go, Tamouridis was on 33 points and Meyer on 31 points. It came down to the last sprint.

The final 5 laps were frantic to the line with Meyer and Tamouridis keeping themselves in check. And when the final lap came around it was on for young and old as the cyclists prepared for the final sprint. In the sprint to the line Meyer finished third, gathering two points with Tamouridis gaining no points meaning both were equal on 33 at the end of proceedings. On countback it was Meyer to claimed the gold medal with Tamouridis the silver. Poland’s Lukasz Bujko claimed bronze with 28 points.

The crowd was loud as Meyer was saluting, celebrating his victory. The win meant a lot for the young Australian. During the race he was worried that he didn’t have many points. He had to stick with his tactics laying it all out. After the race he said he was real happy to win in front of his home crowd with the rainbow jersey. There were big expectations and it is something special he went on to say. He was thrilled coming back from injury to take the win and now gain momentum for next year on the road with Garmin-Slipstream.

For Meyer this was a brilliant win and to perform under pressure like he did with a huge target on his back was a credit to him. They didn’t make it easy for him and he handled it brilliantly showing he has a huge future in the sport.

Mens Point Race
1 Cameron Meyer (Australia) 33 pts
2 Ioannis Tamouridis (Greece) 33
3 Lukasz Bujko (Poland) 28
4 Michael Freiberg (SAL) 26
5 Chris Newton (Great Britain) 24

Women’s Individual Pursuit
The gold medal race was between Britian's Wendy Houvenaghel and Kiwi Alison Shanks. Shanks led throughout but in the end it was Houvenaghel powering home to claim gold in a time of 3:33:771. Shanks recorded 3:34:133 so there was not much between the pair.

In the Bronze medal race, Lesya Kalitovska (Ukraine) comfortably beat Aussie Josephine Tomic with a time of 3:38:047. Tomic recorded 3:42:056.

Women's Individual Pursuit Results
1 Wendy Houvenaghel (Great Britain) 0:03:33.771
2 Alison Shanks (New Zealand) 0:00:00.362
3 Lesya Kalitovska (Ukraine) 0:00:04.276
4 Josephine Tomic (Australia) 0:00:08.285
5 Eleonora Van Dijk (Netherlands)

Men’s Individual Pursuit
Australian Rohan Dennis and Kiwi Jesse Sergent went head to head for the gold medal. There was not much between the pair in qualifying and the race was set to be close. Dennis took the early lead but Sergent drew away and half way through he was up by over two seconds over the young Aussie. However, Dennis fought back strongly bridging the gap ever so slightly, and the deficit moved from around 2.4 seconds to 1.5 seconds. However, Sergent held on winning in a time of 4:23:192. Dennis secured bronze with a time of 4:24:374.

In the Bronze Medal race, Ukrainian Vitaliy Shchedov comfortably beat Netherlands's Levi Heimans recording a time of 4:32:106 with the Dutchman recording 4:37:839.

Men's Individual Pursuit
1 Jesse Sergent (New Zealand) 0:04:23.192
2 Rohan Dennis (Australia) 0:00:01.182
3 Vitaliy Shchedov (Ukraine) 0:00:08.914
4 Levi Heimans (Netherlands) 0:00:14.647
5 Stefan Schäfer (Germany)

Women’s Scratch Race
It was action galore in the women’s scratch race. It was a frantic start with numerous attacks but the race was marred with a heavy crash involving Hong Kong rider Xiao Juan Diao. She went down with another rider but she was worse off not moving for a matter of minutes. In the end, the yellow flag was out as the medics attended to the Hong Kong cyclist who was in a bad way.

When she left on a stretcher the race began again and there were a few attacks. Tasmanian Belinda Goss was one of the favourites for this event and was moving around the field with a few laps to go. However, on the last lap she couldn’t quite do it and the race was won by Russian Evgeniya Romanyuta. Korea’s Eunmi Park claimed the silver with Italian Giorgia Bronzini claiming bronze. Goss was the best Australian in 8th position.

Women's Scratch Race Results
1. Evgeniya Romanyuta (Russia)
2. Eunmi Park (Korea)
3. Giorgia Bronzini (Italy)
4. Theresa Cliff-Ryan (GB)
5. Joanne Kiesanowski (NZ)
6. Iryna Shpylova (Ukraine)
7. Elke Gebhardt (Germany)
8. Belinda Goss (Australia)
9. Leire Olaberria (Spain)
10. Shelly Olds (USA)

Women’s Sprint
It was an exciting night in the sprint with Kaarle McCulloch (Australia) gunning for Bronze with Netherlands Willy Kanis. In the first race McCulloch took the lead on the final lap but was just beaten on the line by Kanis. With Kanis 1-0 up, it was always going to be hard for McCulloch to bounce back. However, she regained her composure and managed to take the second race leading out and forcing her opponent on top of the track. She led it home and despite Kanis bridging the gap, she just held on bringing it into a third race.

In the decider McCulloch again tried her tactic of pushing Kanis to the top of the attack but Kanis responded and took the inside and that left McCulloch more than 5 bike lengths behind. On the back straight it was evident that Kanis wasn’t going to be caught and she came home easily to secure Bronze. It was a fighting performance from McCulloch who has a bright future ahead of her.

Gold Medal Final - Meares and Guo
The gold medal race was the highlight of the night. Anna Meares was up against her rival from China, Shuang Guo. In the first race Meares led out and Guo got to her and they were side by side on the back straight. In the last quarter Meares held the inside and forced Guo up a bit and took the lead and was never passed as she went 1-0 up.

In the second race, Meares led out the sprint again on the last lap. She used the whole track to her advantage going half way up forcing Guo further up. Guo took the lead and on the back straight Meares overtook her and just held on to claim the second race and the gold medal for Australia.

After the race Meares said that she really surprised herself. She really didn’t want to go to three rounds. She was stoked and really deserved the gold after the hard effort she has put in. She stated she has the utmost respect for rival, Guo.

Womens Sprint
1 Anna Meares (Australia)
2 Shuang Guo (People's Republic of China)
3 Willy Kanis (Netherlands)
4 Kaarle Mcculloch (Team Jayco)
5 Jinjie Gong (People's Republic of China)

Men’s Team Sprint
Russia and Australia faced off in the race for Bronze. Russia got the early lead and were never really troubled as they came away with the Bronze in a time of 45:206. Australia recorded 45:436 in a closely fought race.

The gold medal race between Germany and Australian Team Jayco got off to an eventful start with German rider Tobias Wachter falling off just before the gun went off. A false start was recorded and that meant advantage to team Jayco as the German’s were rattled. When the race got underway, Team Jayco got the early lead and hung on to claim gold in a time of 44.589. Germany recorded 44.673.

Men's Team Sprint Results
Gold 1 Team Jayco 0:00:44.449
Daniel Ellis, Shane Perkins, Scott Sunderland
Silver 2 Germany 0:00:44.473
Carsten Bergemann, Rene Enders, Tobias Wachter
Bronze 3 Russia 0:00:45.010
Sergey Borisov, Denis Dmitriev, Sergey Kucherov
4 Australia 0:00:45.252
Alex Bird, Peter Lewis, Jason Niblett

It was an eventful opening night and with two more nights to go, it’s only going to get much more exciting.

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