Australia's favourite for the women's 3000m individual pursuit, Katie Mactier, did not disappoint in tonight's first final, winning her match-up against Lithuanian Vilija Sereikaite to take the first gold medal of this World Cup.
Thirty year-old New Zealander Greg Henderson used a combination of experience, wisdom and patience to fend off former professional roadie, Spaniard Toni Tauler and youthful Australian Cameron Meyer, to glide to a well deserved victory in the men's 30km points race at Sydney's opening round of the 2007 Track World Cup tonight.
Australia won its second gold medal of the opening night when the Toshiba men's team sprint trio put on an awesome display of power to annihilate the German squad in a thrilling final that had the crowd on its feet. After one false start by the German squad that did little to disturb either team, Daniel Ellis burst out of the blocks to once again set a personal best on the opening lap. Ryan Bayley then put in a superb lap to set up Shane Kelly, who finished off with one of the fastest last laps seen in the men's team sprint.
Ukrainian Volodymyr Dyudya, who qualified fastest earlier in the day, dominated his pursuit match against Phil Thuaux, finishing in the same straight as the recently married Australian. Mini Phinney got 9th in the qualifying for the men's pursuit which is pretty awesome.
Dyudya started out strongly and gradually built up time on Thuaux, who explained afterwards that he and coach Gary Sutton had tried something different for the final after he set a personal best time in qualifying. "Yeah what can I say? I never really got on top of the gear. We tried something different tonight than in qualifying, but it didn't work. I think we went in the right direction but maybe need to take it a little further," Thuaux explained
Women's 3000m individual pursuit - qualifying
1 Vilija Sereikaite (Ltu) Safi - Pasta Zara Manhattan 3.36.575 (49.867 km/h)
2 Katie Mactier (Australia) 3.36.784 (49.819 km/h)
3 Karin Thürig (Switzerland) 3.38.293 (49.474 km/h)
4 Wendy Houvenaghel (Great Britain) 3.38.596 (49.406 km/h)
5 Sarah Hammer (United States Of America) 3.38.680 (49.387 km/h)
WOw - it's weird seeing Sarah Hammer 5th in international competition, but I'm sure this was not a huge focus race for her and it was her first individual pursuit in competition since the world championships last April. I think that she is really gearing up for the LA world cup and if all goes well, I might be there to watch! :) Dotsie Bausch got 16th and Kele Murdin got 35th in the pursuit qualifying rounds.
Well that's all for right now. More to come in the next few days! :)
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