Another agonising 4th place
Courtesy of British Cycling

Bitter disappointment for GB's Chris Newton in the Points race, who battled valiantly for a bronze medal, after the top two positions were sewn up by the awesome Aussie Cameron Meyer and Peter Schep.

It looked like the race was done and dusted at half distance when Meyer, Schep, De Poortere and Kadlec went away. However, Newton didn't panic and the 2002 World Champ chipped away, scoring points throughout the race to drag himself into fourth place and in the hunt for bronze.

Mayer, however, was utterly dominant and had the energy to take another lap solo at 40 laps to go. The Aussie policed every move and controlled the remainder of the race from the front.

With the race heading toward its final throes the real competition was for bronze, with Kadlec and Newton prime contenders. Newton continued to score strongly and was left with a last-dash attempt to grab bronze on the final sprint. However, Newton found himself on the front a lap too early and despite completely unloading for the final 500 metres, Newton was overcome on the line and missed out on a medal by the slimmest of margins.

Full credit must go to Cameron Meyer, who was in complete control throughout and looked every inch the World Champion. Commiserations to World Cup winner Tamourdis who fell heavily early on and looked badly hurt.

Speaking to Eurosport, a clearly emotional yet philosophical Newton summed up his race:

"I've been there a few times. It's the fourth time I've finished fourth but by one point... it's just the nature of the beast really. It was my fault, I missed the break. Instead of panicking, I thought I'd sit back a bluff and let the others chase it, and so I clawed back the points. I knew I needed two big scores at the end and I went for it on the second to last one. Then I was there with one sprint to go and all of sudden, I'd opened a gap that was probably too much of a gap to win the sprint but I need to sort out that final sprint. It was a good opening that came to me - I had the run on black but I was just too far out."

1 MEYER Cameron AUS 70 pts
2 SCHEP Peter NED 33 pts
3 KADLEC Milan CZE 27 pts
4 NEWTON Chris GBR 26 pts
5 DE POORTERE Ingmar BEL pts 24
6 RIBLON Christophe FRA 17 pts
7 PEREZ Walter Fernando ARG 13 pts
8 KLUGE Roger GER 13 pts
9 KREUTZFELDT Daniel DEN 10 pts
10 IIJIMA Makoto JPN 8 pts