Cycling: Kenny sprints to silver as pursuit team gets bronze

(getty images)

Jason Kenny won sprint silver as Great Britain picked up two more medals on the final day of the World Cup event here, taking their total for the week to seven. The Olympic silver medallist lost to the Australian Shane Perkins in the final, with Britain's Matt Crampton seventh.

The European champion British men's pursuit team, of Ed Clancy, Steven Burke, Luke Rowe and Andrew Tennant, could only take bronze behind Australia and Russia and Victoria Pendleton missed out on the top 12 in the women's keirin. Australia's Anna Meares won that event to take her tally from the meet to three golds, after winning the 500 metres time trial earlier in the day. It was one of four golds for the Australians on the final day of the event, with Olympic qualifying points available.

Great Britain's Jess Varnish finished sixth in the time trial, a non-Olympic event. She joined Pendleton in the keirin field but neither of the British riders could win their heats and both failed to advance to the final through the repechage round.

With Sir Chris Hoy opting to miss the men's sprint, after taking gold in the team event and the men's keirin on the first two days in Melbourne, Kenny managed to push the world silver medallist Perkins into a third and decisive race in the final.

Russia gained revenge on Great Britain's pursuit team, who beat them into second place at the European Championships in Poland last month, edging them by 0.634 seconds to gain a place in the final.

They could not match that time against Australia in the final, however, and Great Britain – with Luke Rowe replacing Jason Queally – were faster as they beat New Zealand to third place.

The British squad will now train in Australia for a week before heading to Colombia for the second leg of the World Cup, in Cali in a fortnight's time. Further World Cup events take place in Beijing in January and Manchester in February before March's World Championships in Apeldoorn, Holland.