Rowsell topples Hammer for pursuit gold at track cycling Worlds

Great Britain's Joanna Rowsell won her first individual world title, beating defending champion Sarah Hammer in the women's individual pursuit at the track cycling World Championships. Friday, a day after she won team pursuit gold at the Cali velodrome, the 25-year-old Rowsell clocked a personal best of 3min 30.318sec for the win, in which she led from start to finish. Hammer, who set the world record in the 3,000m event of 3:22.269 at altitude in Aguascalientes, Mexico, in 2010, had posted the top qualifying time -- almost a second faster than Roswell's. However, she settled for silver with a time of 3:31.535, unable to earn a record-equalling sixth career world title in the event. That would have tied her with compatriot Rebecca Twigg -- who won six individual pursuit world golds from 1982-1995 -- and Russian Tamara Garkuchina -- who won six from 1967-1974. Australia's Amy Cure earned the bronze medal, beating Ukrainian Ganna Solovei in the third-place race. France's Francois Pervis retained his one kilometer time trial world title on Friday, clocking 59.385sec for his second gold in as many days. Pervis, who won the men's keirin gold on Thursday, will try to make it a world title treble when the individual sprint begins on Saturday. Germany's Joachim Eilers finished second in 59.984 and New Zealand's Simon van Velthooven earned bronze in 1:00.518. Colombia's Edwin Avila gave the home crowd something to cheer with a victory in the men's 40 kilometer points race ahead of New Zealand's Thomas Scully and Spain's Eloy Teruel. Reigning champion Rebecca James of Britain and Australia's 2012 Olympic champion Anna Meares were both eliminated in the quarter-finals of the women's sprint. Jessica Varnish defeated James 2-0 in an all-British quarter-final, while Meares fell to China's Zhong Tianshi. Germany's Kristina Vogel and China's Lin Jinhong also reached the semi-finals, the first time two Chinese women have reached the final four in the event at worlds. Source: AFP