By Roger Vaughan
November 23rd 2009 @ 6:01am
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Anna Meares makes rivals look like mere mortals
Track cycling star Anna Meares won her third gold medal at the Melbourne World Cup with the same move that nearly killed her.
Caught out of position, Meares launched a scorching charge from the rear of the field with two laps left in Saturday night’s keirin final.
No-one could follow her and she stayed clear for an outstanding win.
It was the same sort of long-range, high-speed charge that defined 2004 Olympic champion Ryan Bayley at his peak.
But Meares’ willingness to execute the manoeuvre against a world-class field was another demonstration of her courage and coolness under pressure.
“The move I pulled last night was what I was trying to pull when I fell off in Los Angeles,” Meares said.
Early last year, Meares suffered a fractured neck vertabra when she crashed in the keirin at the Los Angeles World Cup round and would have been paralysaed or even killed if the fracture been slightly longer.
It is part of Australian cycling folklore how Meares recovered from the injury in time for the Beijing Olympics, where she won silver in the sprint.
Meares had since posted some good results, including a world title, but she was uncertain of her form before Melbourne.
She blasted back in the sprint, beating rival Shuang Guo of China in the gold medal ride.
Only minutes before Saturday’s keirin win, Meares won the 500m time trial with the second-fastest time in history.
Her time of 33.583 seconds was a personal best and an Australian record.
“That’s been three years since I’ve won a sprint World Cup and a good four years since I’ve won a keirin World Cup,” she said.
“I’ve always done well in the 500, and the team sprint has come in … I really needed to work on those other two events and I’m really pleased they’ve started to pick up.”
Her domination over the three days was also a big confidence boost for the partnership of Meares and new coach Gary West.
He has taken over from Meares’ long-time coach Martin Barras.
“You can take a bit of a deep breath and know that everything is on the right track,” she said.
Melbourne was a watershed event all-round for the host nation.
The Australian national team won five gold medals to lead the medal tally and the Jayco professional team scored another three.
Cameron Meyer again showed his brilliance to win the points race and then combined with three teenagers to beat arch-rivals Great Britain in the teams pursuit.
Shane Perkins was part of the trio that won the team sprint, and he ended the Cup round on Saturday night with a resounding win in the match sprint.
Great Britain remain the country to beat ahead of the London Olympics and several of their stars did not come to Melbourne.
But eight gold medals from 17 events confirms that Australian track cycling is in good shape a year after Beijing, where Meares won the only medal.
She bristles at the suggestion that Australia fell in a heap last year, saying it was more a problem of selection.
“I don’t like to hear people say ‘oh, it’s great to see everyone’s back and Australian cycling is recovering’ – we didn’t have much to recover from, in my mind,” she said.
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