CYCLING: Australia's Michael Hepburn retained his pursuit title at the world track cycling championships on Thursday with Ireland's Martyn Irvine claiming silver.

It was 21-year-old Hepburn's second gold medal of the championships, coming a day after helping Australia win the team pursuit title.

Teammate Alexander Morgan, 18, just missed the bronze medal, losing to 19-year-old Swiss rider Stefan Kueng.

Irvine later won the men's scratch race to give Ireland a first world track gold medal.

Andreas Muller of Austria was second and Australia's Luke Davison was later given the bronze medal despite the original decision having gone to 2011 world champion Kwok Ho-Ting of Hong Kong.

Great Britain retained the women's team pursuit title, seeing off old rivals Australia.

With Olympic gold medal-winning Laura Trott and Dani King joined by Elinor Barker, the British were too strong for Australia's Annette Edmondson, Ashlee Ankudinoff and Melissa Hoskins in a time of 3min 18.140sec.

Canada's Gillian Carleton, Jasmin Glaesser and Laura Brown saw off Poland for the bronze.

Germany defeated New Zealand to win the men's team sprint gold.

Rene Enders, Stefan Botticher and Maximilian Levy saw off Kiwi trio, Ethan Mitchell, Sam Webster and Edward Dawkins in the final but only by 0.49sec.

France took the bronze medal.

Hong Kong's Sarah Lee Wai Sze won the women's 500m time trial, beating Germany's Miriam Welte.

Britain's Rebecca James was third in the event, making its debut at the championships.

AFP