Victorian Leigh Howard has given Australia a fourth gold medal after winning the five race omnium event at the 2009 UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Pruszkow, Poland.

Howard's victory brought the Australian medal tally to ten made up of four gold, four silver and two bronze medals and placing Australia on top the medal table ahead of France with three gold, two silver and one bronze.

Great Britain finished third on the table with two gold, four silver and three bronze.

Ironically the 19-year-old from Geelong had been in two minds about whether he would start the event in which he claimed silver at last year's World Championships.

"I was extremely exhausted after a pretty hectic program with teams pursuit (Friday) and Madison (last night)," said Howard who claimed silver in both of those events.

"I really put in last night in the Madison and that was my number one focus coming into the Championships so I gave it everything and I was really fatigued after that.

"But now I'm very happy I started - obviously."

The omnium consists of five races contested in one day made up of a flying 200m time trial, 7.5km scratch race, 3km individual pursuit, 15km points race and finishing with a one kilometre time trial.

The placings of the riders in each events are added together and the one with the lowest aggregate wins the crown. Howard started off with a solid fourth place in the flying 200m and backed up with second in the scratch race to take the overall lead.

But in the pursuit he was eighth which dropped him to equal second on 14 points trailing two riders on 13 points each.

"The pursuit is probably not my favourite event although I usually go quite well," explained Howard who was third in the pursuit at last month's Australian Championships.

"It's not my pet event."

The pursuit marked the end of the first session and Howard returned from the team hotel to line up in the points race, the event he admits to finding the most difficult of the omnium.

"The points race, believe it or not for an endurance rider like me, is probably the hardest event," said Howard.

"Last year that was my downfall and I didn't really ride too well in it."

But this year Howard needn't have worried as he raced himself into second place in the points and the overall lead in the competition. Going into the final one kilometre time trial Howard was on 16 points.

Canadian Zachary Bell was second only one point behind on 17, and three other riders were within seven points of Howard.

"I've never been so nervous in my life," said Howard of the minutes before the final race.

"After seeing how fast Zac (Bell) was in the flying 200 and then he also beat me in the pursuit - the nerves were really up there.

"But I really brought home the Aussie spirit and brought it home strong," said Howard who clocked a time of 1min03.533sec to place third which was one ahead of Bell and enough to give him the rainbow jersey.

He finished with 19 points while Bell on 21 points claimed the silver and Tim Veldt with 24 points the bronze medal for the Netherlands.

In other racing today Tasmanian Belinda Goss, who collected the bronze medal in the scratch race on Friday placed fifth in the 25km points race which was won by Italian Giorgia Bronzini. In the men's sprint competition Shane Perkins had looked strong yesterday in qualifying through to the semi final round.

But today he proved no match for in form Malaysian Azizulhasni Awang who defeated him in two straight of the best of three heats to progress to the gold medal final.

Perkins faced Frenchman Kevin Sireau in the bronze medal round but Sireau had too much speed for his Australian rival.

Cycling Australia's National Performance Director, Shayne Bannan, says the results from the young Toshiba Cyclones outfit are the result of a lot of hard work in the development of our young talent.

"Australian cycling should be pleased because a lot of work has been done by our development programs led by Gary Sutton and our juniors over the last ten years and what we saw here was really the fruit of that work," said Bannan.

"Plus the 'old stagers' like Anna Meares as well so a really fantastic combination of some great emerging talent and some really fantastic experience and leadership in the team."

But Bannan says despite the fact Australia topped the medal table there is a long way to go to the Olympic Games in London 2012.

"Overall there is still a lot of work to do and we're not getting carried away because we realise that to be competitve in London we really need to progress each year so that's the aim," he explained.

"Certainly didn't expect it (medal haul) and we, like a few of the other top nations, are concentrating on developmnent and the emerging athlete as we lead into London.

"So we're really pleased with what's happened here but there's still a lot of work to do to repeat the results of Athens."

Bannan says the highlight of the week for him didn't come on the track but back at the team hotel.

"I think the performances that stand out for me is when we're sitting as a team at breakfast, lunch and dinner and I hear the enthuisiasm and commitment of the athletes, the morale within the team, for me that's the standout of the Championships."

Australian medals after 19 of 19 events

Gold
Cameron Meyer - Points Race
Anna Meares / Kaarle McCulloch - team sprint
Josephine Tomic - omnium
Leigh Howard - omnium

Silver
Anna Meares - 500m time trial
Jack Bobridge - individual pursuit
Jack Bobridge, Leigh Howard, Cameron Meyer and Rohan Dennis - team pursuit
Cameron Meyer & Leigh Howard - Madison

Bronze
Josephine Tomic, Sarah Kent and Ashlee Ankudinoff - team pursuit
Belinda Goss - scratch race

Cycling Australia