World champion Anna Meares cut an imposing figure as she dominated the sprint on a dramatic night at the Australian track cycling championships.
Meares won her 22nd senior national title – including six in the sprint – while ACT rider Alex Bird won the senior men’s sprint in a major upset, beating defending champion Shane Perkins for the gold medal.
NSW rider Peter Loft was taken to hospital with an injury in his hip area after a nasty three-rider crash near the end of the senior men’s scratch race, won by Jack Bobridge.
A lightning strike during the scratch race on Saturday night at Adelaide Superdrome disrupted the electronic timing system and, combined with the crash, caused a delay in the schedule.
The electrical problem meant the automatic start gates were out of action for the women’s team pursuit final, where the powerful WA team had wanted to see how close they could come to the world record.
After a false start, the WA trio of Melissa Hoskins, Sarah Kent and Josie Tomic lapped the ACT in the final and finished in an unofficial time of three minutes 21.618 seconds, just outside their own Australian record.
“Secretly, we didn’t speak it out loud, but we all wanted that world record,” Kent said.
“It just didn’t happen today.”
Meares was far and away the best rider in the women’s sprint and she easily beat team sprint partner Kaarle McCulloch two heats to nil in the gold medal ride off.
Meares looked menacing in her all-white world champion body suit and her white helmet, emblazoned with the world champion rainbow stripes.
She calls the helmet her “attitude hat”.
Meares motivated herself for the final by imagining she was racing against international rivals Vicki Pendleton (Great Britain) and Guo Shuang (China).
“I had to have my game on tonight and get my tactics right,” Meares said.
“I just pretended I was racing Vicki or racing Guo and I had to approach it with the same level of seriousness and attitude that I always do.”
While Meares’ win was taking care of business, Bird was ecstatic after beating Perkins 2-0 for his first senior sprint title.
“Never did I ever think I’d beat Shane Perkins, I mean he has been the best rider in the sport for years now, in the sprint, the keirin,” Perkins said
While Bobridge backed up from Friday night’s superb team pursuit win by SA, taking a lap on the field, the race was marred by the crash two laps from the finish.
NSW rider Scott Law and Stephen Hall (WA) walked away from the pileup, but Loft lay on the edge of the track in agony for several minutes before he was stretchered away.
SA’s Annette Edmondson backed up from her record ride on Friday night in the 3000m individual pursuit to win the 25km points race ahead of Kent.
In other Saturday night results, Victorian Jacob Schmid won the men’s under-19 keirin title.
Queensland took out the women’s under-19 team pursuit gold medal and Evan Hull won the men’s under-19 scratch race.
