Leigh Hoffman has claimed a spectacular silver medal in the men's keirin at the 20025 UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Santiago.
Hoffman finished second behind Dutch legend Harrie Lavreysen, who claimed his 18th overall world title and underlined his status as the greatest track sprinter of all time.
Stepping into the void created by Olympic silver medallist Matthew Richardson's shock defection to Great Britain after the Paris Games, the 25-year-old from Whyalla performed superbly to prove there is still plenty of class in the Australian sprint program.
It is Hoffman's first individual medal at a world championships. He was part of the team that won the team sprint gold in 2022, silver in the 2023 and 2024 editions, and bronze earlier in this competition.
The Australian drew the fourth position in the train, behind 2024 silver medallist Mikhail Takovlev and Lavreysen, latching onto Jeffrey Hoogland as the derny swung off.
Lavreysen, who won the event in Paris and has three world titles in the event to boot, wound up very early, launching a stinging attack from two-and-a-half laps out, with Hoffman in hot pursuit.
The Dutch maestro was never likely to be caught, claiming yet another rainbow jersey to add to his extensive collection.
But Australian champion Hoffman showed his incredible power to hold on relatively comfortably to second place, with two-time world silver medallist Hoogland in third.
Although Ellesse Andrews claimed gold in the women's keirin in 2023, no Australian man has won the keirin title since Shane Perkins in 2011, with Richardson's silver medal in 2023 the best result since then.
One of the favourites for gold, Richardson stunningly failed to get out of the quarter finals in one of the major upsets of the championships so far.
Pursuit silver for Olympic champions
Earlier, Australia's mens' team pursuit squad also won a silver medal, the nations' first medal of any colour in the event since 2019..
The reigning world record holders and Olympic champions were up against two-time defending world champions Denmark in the gold medal race, but were never in the hunt.
The Aussie team, consisting of Olympic gold medal winners Oliver Bleddyn and Conor Leahy — both resplendent on custom gold bikes — with Blake Agnoletto and James Moriarty, were behind from the off against the well-drilled Danes, who completed the 4,000m race in 3:43.915, an average speed of 64.31km/h.
The Aussie quartet finished over three seconds behind in the final.
It was Denmark's fourth victory in the event in the past six championships, while this was Australia's first medal in the discipline since winning gold in 2019.
New Zealand finished in third, repeating their result from 2023 in Glasgow.
In the women's event, Australia finished seventh, with Italy just holding off Germany for gold, Great Britain winning the bronze.
In a chaotic women's elimination race, Ireland's Lara Gillespie claimed gold in a race that needed to be re-started three times due to heavy crashes, the first of which involved Australian Alyssa Polites.
Polites lost control of her front wheel in the pack and cannoned into Valeriya Valgonen, who crashed heavily on the pine to prompt a lengthy delay and repair job on the velodrome.
Gillespie, who has spent time training in Australia in recent years, winning the elimination and scratch races at the 2024 Australian Track Nationals in Brisbane, avoided all the chaos to edge past Katie Archibald of Great Britain in the final phase of the race.
"It's really, really special, I'm so proud to do it for my country … I'm so proud of our small little team here. We're small but mighty," Gillespie said.
"I think it took focus and composure," the Irishwoman added on dealing with the delays.
"I kept control of my breath and I kept believing."
