Glenn O'Shea, Alexander Edmonson, Mitchell Mulhern and Miles Scotson clocked a time of 3min 57.907sec to finish 1.716 ahead of Danish quartet Lasse Hansen, Casper Folsach, Alex Rasmussen and Rasmus Quaade in the 4,000 metre race.

The win represented a fourth world title in five years for the Aussies, and O'Shea was delighted with the win over the team who finished fastest in qualifying.

"It is hard to win back-to-back titles, but we trained really hard this year," said O'Shea, part of the silver medal winning team at London 2012.

"We qualified second and weren't 100 per cent sure how we would go in the final.

"But we were the defending champions and weren't going to let that slip easy and we came out and had a really, really good ride in the final.

"We probably had them [Denmark] as favourites coming into the event.

"They have been really strong all year and they are really coming up.

"I think in the next two years leading to the Olympics they will be one of the teams to watch."

Southern hemisphere neighbours New Zealand took the bronze medal, while reigning Olympic champions Great Britain finished a disappointing eighth in qualifying.

In the men's team sprint, it was a repeat of last year's World Championship final in Minsk as New Zealand and defending champions Germany once again battled it out for gold.

But  the result this time round was reversed as Ethan Mitchell, Sam Webster and Edward Dawkins gained revenge with a time of 42.840, with the German trio of Rene Enders, Robert Forstemann and Max Levy 0.045 behind.

France took the sprint bronze.

New Zealand's Sam Webster and Edward Dawkins celebrate their win in the men's team sprint ©AFP/Getty Images



On the women's side, it was better news for Germany as a time of 33.440 was enough to see Miriam Welte and Kristina Vogel secure World Championship gold in the team sprint final, overcoming the Chinese pair of Lin Junhong and Zhong Tianshi.

Bronze went to Britain's Rebecca James and Jessica Varnish who beat Elena Brezhniva and Anastasiia Voinova, as Russia lost out in their third bronze medal final of the day.

"It was a solid performance tonight," Varnish said afterwards.

"It's a really different track to what we've ridden on and you can't really compare it to other performances.

"I think we should be happy.

"It's a really good start."

In the women's 10km scratch final, Belgian Kelly Druyts took the title with Poland's Katarzyna Pawlowska second and Russian Evgenia Romanyuta third.

The action at the Alcides Nieto Patiño Velodrome in Colombia is due to continue through until Sunday (March 2).

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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