Meyer nets world title number 8, Archibald claims Omnium gold

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Australia continued their domination of the 2017 Track World Championships with two more gold medals to add to their pot, a silver and two bronzes on day three. Germany and Great Britain claimed their first golds of the competition in the sprint and the omnium, respectively.

The third day of action on the boards of the Hong Kong Velodrome Park was a stop-start affair, with a number of technical issues and crashes leaving the competitions over 30 minutes behind schedule. Cameron Meyer's performance in the points race was much slicker as the Australian romped to his second gold medal. There were a number of attempts to nudge him off the top spot but Meyer never looked out of his comfort zone and even went on to take a lap on his own.

Meyer, who almost retired from racing last year, went on to win by 36 points. Kenny de Ketele (Belgium) made a late surge to put himself into second place, equal on points with Wojeciech Pszczolarski (Poland), by virtue of his finishing position.

The first outing of the new-look omnium filled the schedule on day three with the women's competition. Katie Archibald got off to a commanding start in the morning session, winning the scratch and tempo races. A crash in the elimination race meant a brief neutralisation while the injured riders were looked after. In the end, Amy Cure beat Kirsten Wild for maximum points to draw level with Archibald ahead of the final competition. Wild was close behind, and with plenty on offer in the points race, there was a huge battle for the sprints.

Archibald held tight, though, to take the title. Cure initially looked like she had taken silver but was relegated to third "for irregular movement to prevent her opponent from passing." She was bumped down to bronze while Wild stepped up to take the silver medal.

Australia managed two spots on the podium in the men's individual pursuit, with Jordan Kerby taking gold and Kelland O'Brien claiming the bronze. Filippo Ganna was the silver medal Italian filling in the Australian sandwich. Kerby blew the competition away in the qualification round, and the victory looked like it might be a formality. Kerby and Ganna were well into their battle for the gold when, inexplicably, the starter gun went off.

Ganna sat up, but Kerby continued, only stopping when the gun went off another time. The two riders had a long, tense wait for the race to restart as the coaches and jury discussed the problem between them. Eventually, it transpired that there was a problem with the timing box and it was only once that was sorted that they could resume. Kerby was not put off by the delay in proceedings, however, and beat Ganna to the title by four seconds.

More delays were to be had in the women's sprint finals, in the gold medal match-up between Stephanie Morton and Kristina Vogel. A two-time individual sprint champion and last year's bronze medallist, Vogel made the final by beating Hong Kong's Lee Wai Sze in two heats. It almost went to three when Vogel deviated from the sprinter's line, but she escaped with just a warning. Morton had to go to three to get past Simone Krupeckaite, after losing the first contest to the Lithuanian.

The women's individual sprint was the last of the medals to be decided with the points race of the women's omnium between race one and two. Already around 20 minutes behind schedule due to the earlier delays, race one had to be re-run after a problem for Morton. Just as the two riders were winding up for the sprint, Morton sat up. She seemed to indicate that there had been a problem with one of the wheels but her mechanics couldn't find any issues. It was only when one of them took a trip around the track that they found a small piece of debris near the inside of the track, which they believed Morton had ridden over. Whatever the problem was, Morton was allowed to have another go, but she was resoundingly beaten by Vogel, who would cleanly best her in race two to claim the sprint title for the third time in her career.

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