Menai’s Rio Olympian Ashlee Ankudinoff helped make Sunday a golden day for Australia as the women's pursuit team claimed the gold medal to complete the Cali round of the 2016-17 Tissot UCI Track World Cup series.
2015 world champions Ashlee Ankudinoff and Amy Cure combined with individual pursuit world champion Rebecca Wiasak and former junior world champion Alex Manly to win gold in a show of rainbow force at the Velódromo Alcides Nieto Patiño in Cali, Colombia.
After qualifying third fastest on Saturday, Australia went from strength to strength producing a stunning time of 4 minutes and 21.580 seconds in the first round. The fastest of the competition to defeat Canada and earn a spot in the gold final.
"We were thrilled to have bettered our time by five seconds in the qualifying round," dual world champion Ankudinoff said of their round one time. "We treated it like our final and left it all out on the track so to look up and see that we had done a 4:21 we were very happy. "
In the ride for gold it was fastest qualifiers Italy who lead the race for the opening two kilometres but the experience of the Australian team kept the Italian's in reach. After taking the lead through the third kilometre, and as the Italian's started to fade there was no stopping the Australia quartet grabbing gold.
"The final ride was just like our previous ride. Smooth, controlled and we rode to our schedule. At the halfway mark Sutto [Gary Sutton] let us know where we were in relation to the Italian's and I must admit it was quite tight heading into the final km.
"But heading into the final we knew that our back end was one of our strengths and we didn't let the Italian's rattle us by going out hard."Andkudinoff said.
The victory gave Australia their fifth World Cup victory in the women's team pursuit since it was first introduced in the 2007-08 season and the third season in a row Australia has emerged with a gold medal.
The team now turns their attention to the Los Angeles World Cup next weekend with Ankudinoff pleased with the improvements the team is making.
"We put together three strong rides here in Cali and this was the first time we had all ridden together in the team pursuit so I am confident that we can go another level in a weeks time.
"We will use LA World Cup as another stepping stone towards the World Championships in April."
The women's endurance team of Ankudinoff, Baker, Cure, Manly and Wiasak now head to the final round in Los Angeles, February 24-26, and are joined by O'Brien and Clarke.