Cycling: Three-time champion duo win team sprint

Three-time world champion duo Anna Meares and Kaarle McCulloch have won gold in the team sprint event at the first round of the track cycling World Cup series in Astana, Kazakhstan.

The pair posted a time of 32.938 seconds for the two lap event and were the only team to ride under 33 seconds.

Their time was a mere 0.015 off the world record they rode to win the 2010 world title in Copenhagen.

"This is the first World Cup of the season and this has come out of the really hard pre-season race training we've done," Meares said.

"We were so close to a world record, it's really exciting at this point in the season."

The World Cup series includes rounds in Colombia (1-3 December) and China (20-22 January) with the fourth and final round being staged at the London Olympic Games velodrome from 17 to 19 February.

Australia collected two silver medals in men's events.

In the three-lap men's team sprint the Jayco-AIS trio of Shane Perkins, Scott Sunderland and Matthew Glaetzer set an Australian record time of 43.589 in qualifying.

In the gold medal ride they crossed the line in a time of 43.661 to finish behind Germany's Team Erdgas.2012 (Robert Forstemann, Max Levy and Joachim Eilers) who won the race in 43.474.

Untested quartet Glenn O'Shea, Mitchell Mulhern, Edward Bissaker and Alex Edmondson claimed a silver medal in the team pursuit with a time of 4:01.417.

- AAP