Australian National Track Championships 2008

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Tasmania's Belinda Goss claimed her second straight points race title. 24 year old Goss was the favourite for the gold medal in the 25km, 100 lap points race and she signalled her form early on taking out the first two sprints for maximum points.

"It's always good to come and win it back, particularly as it was a great race," said Goss. "All the girls were having a really good go at it and it was great to get the win against them."

The 24 year old believes that her busy summer schedule, which has included trips to two UCI World Cup events in addition to Victoria's Bay Cycling Classic, put her in good form for her nationals assault.

"It's all been going well and I have had a good lead in," said Goss who secured medals in the scratch race in both the Sydney and Beijing rounds of the World Cup and was fourth in the points race in Beijing. "Although there's been lots of travelling for me lately, I have been making sure that I have been getting good recovery and it's all paid off."

But the race didn't go all her way with Victorian Tess Downing, Tuesday's individual pursuit winner, Josephine Tomic and local Skye Lee Armstrong all mounting strong challenges. But Goss responded to win two further sprints and place in another three of the nine contested to end the race with 28 points, seven clear of Downing on 21 points. Ten laps from the finish gold and silver were decided but the battle for bronze was hard fought as Tomic launched herself off the front in a bid to overhaul Armstrong's tally.

Armstrong reacted to cross the line ahead of Tomic on the final sprint but in her desperation to reach Tomic she rode off the track and was stripped of her final sprint points by officials. That moved Tomic into third with 15 points.

Under 19

The euphoric rise of 16 year old New South Wales cyclist Megan Dunn has continued with a dominant display in the women's U19 20km points race. Fresh from last month being crowned the youngest ever winner of the Jayco Bay Cycling Series, Dunn's consistency during the race proved the difference with the young cyclist winning five sprints and gaining points in the other three.

She won the gold with a tally of 32 points, almost double that of West Australia's silver medallist Sarah Kent on 17 points. Canberra's Chloe Hosking recovered from a mid race crash to take bronze with 14 points.

"I just concentrated on being consistent tonight, as you don't want to go your hardest when you have 30 or 40 laps to go," said a seemingly indefatigable Dunn. "I really wanted it tonight and I guess when you set your mind to something you can achieve anything."

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