Tomic grabs women's omnium gold

Australian Josephine Tomic won the women's inaugural five-event omnium here at the world track cycling championships in Poland.

Tomic, the reigning Australian omnium champion, began her gold medalcampaign with a personal best time in the flying 200m time trial, thefirst of the five races that make up the omnium.

That put her in sixthplace in the 16 rider field. But her rides in the scratch race (eighth)and the pursuit (fourth) were not what she had hoped for and at the endof the afternoon session she was sitting ten points off the lead infifth place overall and not feeling confident.

"It's been avery tough day, a long day and I'm glad to see the end of it really,"said Tomic after receiving the rainbow jersey of World Champion.

"Iwent back to the hotel (in the break after the first three events) andre-focussed and then when I came back I was really on a mission and I'mhappy I pulled it off."

Tomic lined up in the points raceknowing she needed to perform well there to have any chance of makingthe podium and she rode it brilliantly winning the second and last ofthe four sprints to move her onto 19 points and tied in the lead withCanadian Tara Whitten going into the final 500m time trial to decidethe winner.

Sitting in second place was the Ukraine's Lesya Kalitovskaon 20 points and not far behind time trial specialist Yvonne Hijgenaarof the Netherlands on 25 points.

"The 500 is definitely notone of my best events but I was actually more concerned about Yvonnebecause she only had to beat me by five (actually seven) places or moreto actually win," said Tomic who was in the last heat to race.

"So whenI saw all the other girls putting up really good times I started to geta little nervous but I had a really good start and managed to pull itoff."

She was right to be concerned about Hijgenaar who wonthe 500m round with a time of 35.242sec but Tomic's time of 36.750 puther seventh and gave her a total of 26 points one points clear of thefinal tally of both Whitten and Hijgenaar who both finished with 27points.

Whitten was awarded the silver medal and Hijgenaar the bronze.

Tomic'sfinal race came after her team mates Cameron Meyer, 21, and LeighHoward, 19, had pulled off a desperate last ditch attack in the 200 lap(50km) Madison to storm to the silver medal position on the podium.

"The boys defintely inspired me," said Tomic. "It looked like they were in trouble in the race and then they took a lap.

"Cameron always inspires me whenever I see him race so I was definitely motivated and I wanted to go one better."