Australia has topped the medal table after three days of racing in the Sydney World Cup collecting three gold, four silver and two bronze medals. Australians amassed 138 points ahead of France on 105 and Great Britain on 91 points after adding the results of all riders of each nationality competing.

The introduction of professional teams saw Australia benefit from performances by Team Toshiba, Drapac Porsche and the National team riders on the nation rankings table.

In the final day of competition Australia's only medal was a silver one that come from the international debut of the women's teams pursuit.

Used to riding solo, Friday's individual pursuit winner Katie Mactier teamed with Junior World Champion, Josephine Tomic, and Tasmania's Belinda Goss to set the second fastest qualifying time in their first competition ride. In the final the trio bettered that time by almost four seconds but it wasn't enough to overhaul the finely tuned Russian team who won the gold medal final in a time of 3:29.072, 1.6 seconds quicker than Australia's 3:30.675.

"Considering it's our first ever pursuit it was beyond our expectations," said Mactier. "It would have been nice to come home victorious with the gold, but in our first ride off, we are all pretty delighted.

"We have a lot of data on the event now which we can look at and work on, so we will do a lot more training pre-Manchester (World Championships March 2008)," she added.

Rising West Australian star and Triple 2007 Junior World Champion Josephine Tomic was delighted with her medal.

"It was really special to ride with Katie and Belinda as I am a lot younger and I really look up to them," said Tomic.

Head track coach, Martin Barras, says Australia's nine medal haul was a 'solid hit out' and but admits there is room for improvement

"There is still an awful lot of work to be done between now and Beijing in terms of the progress that the team needs to make," said Barras. "We're contenders (but) we're not at the top.''

Over the three days of racing Australia collected gold medals through the TeamToshiba's men's team sprint trio (Ryan Bayley, Daniel Ellis and Shane Kelly) and Anna Meares (500m time trial) with national team rider Katie Mactier snaring the individual pursuit win. Silver medals were won by Anna Meares in the sprint, her sister Kerrie and Kaarle McCulloch in the women's teams sprint, Drapac Porsche rider Phil Thuaux in the men's individual pursuit and the women's teams pursuit trio. Toshiba's Cameron Meyer posted a bronze medal performance in the points race bronze as did his team mates Jack Bobridge, Peter Dawson, Zak Dempster and Mark Jamieson in the teams pursuit.

Other racing on the final day included the men's sprint where France dominated with three riders in the final four. The gold medal was won by Mickhael Bourgain (Cofidis) over his team mate Kevin Sireau in two straight heats but Scotland's Chris Hoy claimed bronze to stop a French clean sweep.

The women's keirin went to script for reigning World Champion, Victoria Pendleton (GBR - Science in Sport), who proved too strong in the sprint for home to claim the win ahead of American Jennie Reed (Momentum) and Belarus rider Natalia Tsylinskaya.

The Madison was the final event was the most hotly contested of the three days of World Cup action. The field averaged 55km/h for the 160 lap, 40 kilometre race and although sprints were only contested every twenty laps there was an avalanche of attacks by riders trying to gain laps on their rivals.

With one sprint remaining the Dutch duo, Peter Schep and Jens Mouris, and Spanish pair, Joan Llaneras Rossello and Carlos Torrent Tarres, were locked together with the victory down to the wire. The Dutch opted not to wait for the sprint instead launching a blistering burst of speed the Spanish pair were unable to match. The Dutch gained another lap in the last kilometre of racing and in the process secured the gold medal.

395 of the world's best cyclists from 48 countries, including 27 professional teams, raced in Sydney this weekend in what was the biggest track cycling event ever staged. Sydney was the first of four rounds of the UCI World Cup Classics (Sydney, Beijing, Los Angeles, Copenhagen) to be followed by the World Championships in Manchester in March with Olympic Games qualification points on the line at all five events. Fifteen reigning World Champions and nine gold medallists from the 2004 Olympic Games raced in Sydney.

World Cup action now moves to Beijing with the Australians boarding a flight on Monday to contest the second round from December 7 to 9.