Three gold medals from Cali Track World Cup for Australia
(Cyclingnews.com)

Australian`s first Track World Cup of 2017 proved a successful outing with three gold medals on the velodrome in Cali, Colombia. Gold went to Sam Welsford in the men`s omnium, with Amy Cure claiming the points race, while the women`s team pursuit squad closed out the meet with victory over Italy. One of Australia`s smallest squads in recent Track World Cups headed over to Cali for the penultimate round of the 2016-17 series where the youthful riders shone. Australia finished the meet second on the medal tally to Germany who claimed four gold medals. Welsford was the one rider from Rio`s team pursuit silver-wining squad in Cali but the 21-year-old was only racing the individual events. He no issues with the new omnium format, taking the gold medal a comfortable 11 points clear of Lindsay De Vylder (Belgium). Victory in the scratch race, third in the tempo and another victory in the elimination had Welsford in the box seat with just the points race to come.ADVERTISEMENT Welsford was on the front foot during the final points race event to finish with 128 points to his name and a first individual gold medal in a Track World Cup. The win made up for Welsford`s untimely mechanical in the individual points race, when leading the event, seeing him drop from first to 17th when gold was all but secured. Following on from Welsford`s gold, the endurance women`s squad lined out for the team pursuit hungry for its own success. 2015 world champions Amy Cure and Ashlee Ankudinoff along with two-time individual pursuit world champion Rebecca Wiasak and Alex Manly started slowly by qualifying third in the team pursuit. The quartet turned it up a notch in the semi-final and recorded a 4:21.580 time to blitz the Canadians and set up a final against Italy. In the final, the Italians started fast and led for the first two kilometres but started to fade as Australian hit their straps, riding to the gold medal victory. The win ensured the third year in succession Australia has cla ...