Cycling: France clinch men's Madison, Barker win first individual gold

HONG KONG (Reuters) - French duo Benjamin Thomas and Morgan Kneisky edged out Australia's Cameron Meyer and Callum Scotson to win the men's Madison, while Elinor Barker claimed her first individual world title at the track cycling world championships on Sunday.

Four world titles were awarded on the final day in Hong Kong, with France winning two, and Germany and Britain each claiming one.

Thomas and Kneisky, who lost out to Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish in London last year, displayed incredible endurance to go one further this time around, beating Meyer and Scotson in the 200-lap men's Madison by four points to take gold.

Belgium's Moreno De Pauw and Kenny De Ketele took bronze.

Thomas claimed his second gold medal in this year's world championships, having won the omnium title on Saturday, while Kneisky now has four world titles.

A late surge from Britain's Barker, a team pursuit Olympic champion, saw her snatch the points race title from United States' Sarah Hammer. Kirsten Wild of the Netherlands won the bronze medal, two laps in arrears.

Along with her points race victory, Barker also won scratch and Madison silver.

"I'm incredibly happy," Barker told the BBC. "Until the last lap it was looking like another silver. I'm so happy it was a gold."

Germany's two-time Olympic champion Kristina Vogel did just about enough to retain her keirin title, and in the process win her ninth world title, finishing 0.061 seconds quicker than Colombia's Martha Bayona. Nicky Degrendele of Belgium won bronze.

In the men's 1km time trial, France's world record holder Francois Pervis won the event for the fourth time, finishing comfortably ahead of Czech Republic's Tomas Babek and Frenchman Quentin Lafargue, who tied for silver to the thousandth of a second.

Australia finished top of the medal table with three golds and 11 medals in total. France's final-day heroics saw them leapfrog Russia to finish second. France, who claimed five medals in total, and Russia both won three golds.

This is only the second time the world championship has been held in Asia, with 11 countries winning world titles.

(Reporting by Shravanth Vijayakumar in Bengaluru, editing by Tom Hayward and Pritha Sarkar)