Australia's world champion men's sprint team have been dethroned in a sensational battle with their great Dutch rivals while Kristina Clonan has raced to time trial silver on the Glasgow track.
Leigh Hoffman, Matt Richardson and Matt Glaetzer, victorious in last year's final at Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, were this time beaten by the same Dutch trio of Roy van den Berg, Harrie Lavreysen and Jeffrey Hoogland in a see-saw showdown at the Sir Chris Hoy velodrome.
The arena named after one of the sport's greatest sprinters witnessed an astonishing battle on Friday as the lead switched twice in just 41.647 thrilling seconds as the Netherlands regained their status as best in the world by a mere 0.035 sec.
Hoffman was outpaced over half of the first lap but roared back to lead by 0.112 seconds when the 250m circuit was completed, an advantage then cut to 0.042 as Commonwealth champ Richardson was pitted against his great rival, double Olympic gold medallist Lavreysen.
But in the final circuit, the Aussie lead was finally overhauled by a blistering lap from Hoogland, who was described by his teammate van den Berg as "the machine" for outduelling triple world champ Glaetzer.
"We left it all out there today," said Glaetzer.
"It was tougher than last year. We don’t have too much recovery time between the first round and final; our second race was much better than the first, and we just laid it all out there."
“It feels good to have that jersey back,” said all-time great Lavreysen, who was able to celebrate a 12th world title.
Thomas Cornish, who had competed in the qualification round on Thursday, also ended with silver alongside his three Australian teammates.
Clonan, the only women's sprinter in the Australian team, had earlier delivered the performance of her life as the penultimate rider in the 500m IP, clocking a personal best of 32.956 seconds as she roared into the gold-medal position at an average speed of 54.618kph over the two laps.
And she must have felt she was in with a glorious chance of lifting the title after German superstar Emma Hinze had, by her standards, a sluggish start in the final run, being 0.164sec down on the Sunshine Coast racer going into the last circuit.
But Hinze produced a startling turn of speed over the final lap, blasting to victory by 0.136 seconds as she stopped the clock at 32.820 to win her eighth world championship gold at the age of just 25, and her second of the championships after taking team sprint gold on Thursday.
"It’s very special," said Clonan. "I've had a bit of a turbulent year, so this is really, really nice. I’d be lying in saying that I didn’t come for the rainbows (world championship jersey), I gotta settle for silver, but it’s super special."
It was particularly satisfying for the 25-year-old, who reinvented her career, switching from endurance racing to sprinting when she missed out on Olympic selection for Tokyo.
"If I thought about this when I was an enduro, it would seem a bit surreal, so I feel like I’m pretty hard on myself for the expectations. But it’s so special to get a medal."
Australia's para-cyclists continued to thrive, taking their tally to five medals over the first two days of competition, while still waiting for the first gold.
Michael Shippley, the 31-year-old Queenslander who took bronze at the worlds last year, grabbed silver this time in the C4 time trial over 1km, while Blaxland's Paralympic champ Amanda Reid annexed bronze in the C2 individual pursuit.
