Queen of the track Laura Trott claimed her second gold medal of the UCI Track World Cup in Glasgow with victory in the omnium.
The double Olympic champion made a triumphant return to competitive action in the team pursuit with Dani King and Elinor Barker in the team pursuit on Friday.
And the 20-year-old went on to win Great Britain’s only medal on the final day of racing in Glasgow after edging out Australian Ashlee Ankudinoff in the six-discipline omnium.
“It’s so hard coming back from the Olympics and having to get your head around racing again. I’m not fit – I’m not going to lie,” said Trott.
“I just came here for the home crowd and the support they gave us at the Olympics – you just want to give them something back. To compete in your home World Cup, I just wanted to do it and to say thanks. I can’t believe that I won.”
Trott looked to running on empty in the omnium’s first two events, the flying lap and points race, on Saturday but kick-started her campaign with victory in the elimination race.
Victory in the three kilometre individual pursuit left Trott level on points with Ankudinoff but the Australian edged ahead after beating Trott in the scratch race.
That left Trott needing to finish two places ahead of Ankudinoff in the 500m time trial – and she did so with aplomb, winning the final event while Ankudinoff finished fourth to fall to second overall.
“I didn’t have to race the omnium but it is the only chance to race in my world champion’s jersey and I always want to win,” added Trott.
“When I was there in silver medal position I thought, ‘There’s no way I am having that’. I just love winning and the feeling when the crowd are chanting your name. The crowd was fantastic supporting me through the highs and the lows.”
Meanwhile, Becky James finished out of the medals in the women’s keirin. The 20-year-old led-out the sprint as the derny pulled off the track but was swamped on the final lap and finished fifth. Germany’s Kristina Vogel won to complete a clean sweep of all three women’s sprint titles.
Philip Hindes was Great Britain’s sole representative in the men’s individual sprint after Olympic champion Jason Kenny withdrew following his last-lap crash in Saturday’s men’s keirin.
A number of crashes beset the Great Britain team over the course of the weekend, the most spectacular being the men’s team pursuit pile-up on Friday, and that bad luck continued when Hindes slipped down the banking in his first-round sprint match to finish 12th.
