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Alison Shanks - Source: Photosport
New Zealand cyclist Alison Shanks faces a repeat of her world championship final in the rideoff for a gold medal at the track cycling World Cup in Melbourne later on Thursday night.
Shanks, the world champion, will take on Great Britain's Wendy Houvenaghel in the final of the women's 3000m individual pursuit.
It is a repeat of their clash in Poland earlier this year where the New Zealander prevailed.
Feilding's Jesse Sergent is also into the final in the men's 4000m individual pursuit final where he will take on Australian Rohan Dennis.
The Australian topped qualifiers in four minutes 19.25 seconds with Sergent clocking 4min 19.92sec.
Also through to finals is Invercargill's Tom Scully in the men's points race.
Houvenaghel, the silver medallist at the 2008 Beijing Olympics where Shanks finished fourth, topped qualifiers in 3min 34.156sec at a chilly Hisense Arena in Melbourne.
Shanks was only 7/10ths of a second behind with the pair 4sec faster than the next qualifier, to set up a repeat showdown of their world championship clash.
"I'm looking forward to it. I was pretty pleased with the performance today," Shanks said.
"I was really happy with the first 2km as I got into my rhythm but I got held up passing my opponent and that seemed to upset my rhythm a bit.
"My strength is usually in how I finish off races and the ability to back-up in the evening final."
Cool arena
Shanks said the cool arena was a real issue.
"It's about 32 degrees outside but they have the air conditioning on full bore and it's only about 20 degrees inside. The track is really dead. If they turned the air con off then we would have a really fast track tonight."
The 26-year-old said she knew she was in for a real battle tonight after Houvenaghel clocked 3min 30.800sec in qualifying on her way to winning the first World Cup in Manchester last month.
"She is in really good form right now. I will need to be at my best tonight."
Shanks set a personal best 3min 29.807ec in beating the Great Britain rider at this year's world championships .
Sergent, who was fourth at the world championships, looked strong over the first 3km but faded a little in the final 1km.
Earlier, Scully cruised through to the final of the points race, finishing in a share of fourth place in his heat over 15km.
He took out the final sprint to share fourth place with top rated Australian Cameron Meyer.
New Zealand finished fifth in the team sprint with the trio of Eddie Dawkins, Simon Van Velthooven and Adam Stewart going under the New Zealand record time they set at last week's Oceania championships in Invercargill.
They clocked 45.481sec in the event where Australia's Team Jayco and Germany were fastest qualifiers 1sec quicker than the New Zealanders.
The teenage team of world junior champions Sam Webster and Ethan Mitchell with Andrew Williams were 10th in 46.627sec.
The evening session is not due to finish until near midnight (NZT).
