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AAP
AAP
Sport
Ian Chadband

Four Aussie golds after velodrome crash

Jess Gallagher and pilot Caitlin Ward have won their second golds of the cycling track program. (Alex Broadway/AAP PHOTOS) (AAP)

In a blur of blazing saddles, Australia's track cyclists have blasted their way to four golds on a day of astonishing drama at the London Olympic velodrome.

Georgia Baker, Kristina Clonan, along with the para-cycling duo of Jess Gallagher and pilot Caitlin Ward, began the golden feast on Sunday before Matt Richardson produced the most dazzling of sprint triumphs.

But Matt Glaetzer, who thought he'd won a medal in the sprint just 24 hours after being flattened in a dramatic keirin crash, was left fuming after he was relegated from bronze by the judges.

This extraordinary quadruple triumph, plus a bronze won by the men's para-cycling duo, Beau Wootton and sighted pilot Luke Zaccaria, came on a day when serious questions were being asked over rider and spectator safety after a terrifying crash.

The morning session had to be concluded early after English Olympic champ Matt Walls was taken to hospital after being catapulted over the barriers and into the crowd in a multi-rider pile-up in the final lap of the 15km scratch race qualifier.

Isle of Man's Matt Bostock and Canadian Derek Gee also went to hospital, while two spectators were also treated before organisers decided to call off the rest of the program with the end of the session approaching.

By the afternoon, though, the arena that hosted so much UK gold at the 2012 Olympics was being turned green-and-gold by a constant stream of Australian triumphs.

In the individual blue riband event, Richardson overcame real disadvantages en route to defeating Trinidad's newly-crowned keirin champion Nicholas Paul in the final.

Locked at 1-1 in his quarter-final match race with Malaysian Shah Sahrom, Richardson had an agonising wait following the crash as the decider was put back to the afternoon.

Matt Glaetzer will compete in the Commowealth Games sprint the morning after his shocking crash. (Matt Turner/AAP PHOTOS) (AAP)

It left him with the serious handicap of having to race his semi-final soon after, but he made light of it by producing a series of dazzling sprints.

Baker, already a champion in the team pursuit, took her second crown in three days with a masterful performance in the marathon 100-lap points event, winning four of the 10 sprints and earning a huge 19-point advantage.

Then Clonan, the last rider to go in the 500m time trial, blasted through the two laps to snatch victory by just 0.060 secs from Canadian Kelsey Mitchell, recording a blistering Games record of 33.234 seconds.

They followed another emphatic victory for the tandem team of Gallagher and Ward in the 1000m time trial for blind and visually impaired cyclists with a sighted pilot.

And their fellow para-cycling duo, Wootton and Zaccaria, then landed bronze in the tandem B sprint, defeating Welsh pair Alex Pope and Lloyd Steffan.

Last to go in the time trial, Gallagher and Ward powered round the four laps in 1 minute 07.138 seconds, finishing 0.416 sec clear of Sophie Unwin, the Englishwoman who was distraught after being denied a bronze in the sprint because there weren't enough competitors in the race.

Glaetzer's latest comeback act featured him losing 2-1 in the semi-finals to Paul, but he was left absolutely determined to be rewarded in the one event in which he most desperately wanted to land a first medal.

In a bruising, tough deciding race, he defeated Jack Carlin but then lost out on the verdict after judges had taken a long hard look at how the pair jostled side-by-side in the denouement.

There had been fears the Games might be over for Glaetzer after the high-speed crash in Saturday's second round heat, which also ended with his English rival Joe Truman suffering a suspected broken collar bone.

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