Meares retains keirin crown

Australia’s Anna Meares added to the hosts’ gold medal tally at the track world champion-ships yesterday with a stunning display of riding to defend her keirin crown.

Meares, 28, launched a late charge with one lap to go in the eight-lap event to take the lead before finishing ahead of Russia’s Evgenia Gnidenko and Germany’s Kristina Vogel.

Gnidenko took the silver for her first worlds medal with Vogel taking the bronze, her second medal of the championships after her team sprint victory on the opening day.

It was Meares’s fifth world gold in an individual event and comes eight years after she took a sprint silver as an up-and-coming 20-year-old racer in the sprint at the same Melbourne velodrome.

It also came less than 24 hours after she lost her sprint crown to British rival Victoria Pendleton but less than four months to the event at the London Olympics where she will target three titles.