Reigning World Champion, Katie Mactier, 30, lived up to her pre-race favourite status in fine style tonight when she won gold in the 3km individual pursuit at the Australian Track Cycling Championships, her third title in the event in four years.

It was Melbourne's Mactier versus Sydney's Kate Bates, 23, in a re-run of last year's gold medal ride at the World Championships in Los Angeles and once again Mactier proved too strong for her younger rival posting a winning time of 3min35.397sec to Bates' 3min39.801sec.

"It felt obviously not as fresh as the first round (but) the time was still reasonably good," said Mactier who rode 3min33sec in the qualifying round earlier in the day and is confident she can improve even more before the Melbourne Commonwealth Games. "I've only been on the track five times leading into this competition, I still have a lot of work to do with my pacing strategies - my first kilo is always something I need to try to control.

"There's still room for improvement - it's not like I'm standing here saying I just rode the perfect pursuit," said "I was ill with pneumonia this time last year....I'm just rapt to be able to come back to take home the national title and now commence the campaign into the 'Commies' and the worlds."

The bronze medal was claimed by 21 year old South Australian, Alexis Rhodes, who continues her astounding comeback from critical injuries sustained in last year's tragic road accident in Germany that claimed the life of Australian cyclist Amy Gillett. Rhodes stopped the clock at 3min43.569sec to defeat 1992 Barcelona Olympic pursuit silver medallist, Kathryn Watt, 41, who rode 3min45.581sec.

"That was pretty hard, but I felt really good out there," said Rhodes. "It's always been on my radar, but hopefully today I've shown them I can still pursuit, well, not great, but still probably the third-best.

"For me, I really, really want that third spot in the points race (at Commonwealth Games) and anything else is a bonus, to tell you the truth," said Rhodes who was last week named in the road team for the Commonwealth Games but team management can opt to enter riders in other disciplines at their discretion. "I really want to help out (Kate Bates) in the points race.

In the U19 women's 2km pursuit it was an all Victorian battle for gold with Peta Mullens' time of 2min28.317sec enough for gold over Tess Downing's time of 2min29.818sec. Josephine Tomic of Western Australia claimed bronze in 2min30.485sec against Tasmanian Grace Sulzberger (2min32.392).

In the multidisability competition West Australian world record holder Jane Armstrong met the medal standard time to claim gold in the LC3 women's pursuit, Angela Fleming claimed gold for the LC2 3km pursuit and Claire McLean was named Australian Champion in the LC1 3km pursuit.

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Results

3km Pursuit

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2km U19 Pursuit Qualifying