WAIS Athletes Complete Track World Championship Campaign
Australia has finished the UCI Track World Championships in Minsk, Belarus ranked third after collecting eight medals at the 2013 Championships.
WAIS athletes Scott Sunderland and Melissa Hoskins were unable to add further medals to the silver, Hoskins won in the women’s team pursuit earlier in the competition.
Sunderland was unlucky to have missed out on medal in the men’s keirin, with the 2012 team sprint world champion, qualifying for the final, before being boxed out by competitors to finish fifth, with Olympic sprint champion Jason Kenny of Great Britain taking the gold medal.
"It was good to get in the final but just unfortunate, I had good legs but from the get go I was stuck at the back which is always going to be difficult," said 24 year old Sunderland who raced his sixth world championships. "I tried to make use of it but coming round (I was) getting hooks galore, people riding up, people riding down and really finding it hard to get through."
After finding himself at fifth wheel in the keirin train behind the motor-pace derny, Sunderland had to reassess his plan but couldn't get a clean run through the field.
"I was hoping to slot in behind Max Levy (Germany) who was below me but I think Jason Kenny came underneath me and that made it difficult but like I said I had really good legs and I was feeling strong so it's a shame."
The Busselton born athlete also competed in the men’s sprint, but his qualifying time was only good enough for 20th place, which left the Adelaide based cyclist out of the following rounds.
London Olympian Mel Hoskins could not add a bunch race medal to her collection in Minsk, after competing in the 10km women’s scratch race in which she had claimed silver in the 2012 event in Melbourne.
Hoskins appeared comfortable until ten laps from home when a succession of attacks saw a trio break clear. Of the three it was Poland's Katarzyna Pawlowska who grabbed the win ahead of Mexico's Sofia Arreola Navarro with Russian Evgeniya Romanyuta sprinting out of the bunch on the final lap to claim third place.
Cycling Australia National Performance Director, Kevin Tabotta, says the first world championships after the Olympic Games featured some promising performances.
"We're rebuilding for the future, looking towards 2016 in Rio so it's important to come in here and indicate where you think you can be competitive heading forward but not setting any really lofty expectations," said Tabotta. "We're reasonably pleased and more or less meeting expectations."