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Hong Kong - Australia fell short of a new world record but took gold with ease as they smashed New Zealand to claim their second straight team pursuit title at the Track Cycling World Championships on Thursday.
The defending champions and Olympic silver-medallists romped to victory by nearly 2.5 seconds over the 2015 winners with a time of 3min 51.503sec at the Hong Kong Velodrome.
Australia had raised expectations with their qualifying time on Wednesday of 3:50.577, a shade off the world record of 3:50.265 set by Britain at last year's Olympics.
Sam Welsford and Alexander Porter celebrated back-to-back gold medals, while veteran Cameron Meyer won his seventh world title and Nicholas Yallouris claimed his first.
Italy took the bronze medal when in the final kilometre, they overhauled a new-look British team to win by a healthy 1.631sec.
Poland's Adrian Teklinski, 27, won his first world title with a powerful break in the final stages of the 15km men's scratch race, finishing comfortably ahead of Germany's Lucas Liss and Christopher Latham of Britain.
"Really happy with that, I finally come away with a medal," said Latham, after reaching the world championships podium for the first time.
"I wasn't sure he (Teklinski) was going to do it, he did all right didn't he?"
Hong Kong's Sarah Lee, a 2012 Olympic bronze medallist, lifted home hopes and the noise level in the velodrome when she beat Australia's Kaarle McCulloch by seven-hundredths to reach the women's sprint semi-finals.
