Three-time world champion Kaarle McCulloch and Rio Olympian Stephanie Morton have opened Australia's medal account at the world track cycling championships in Hong Kong.
The duo finished second in the women's team sprint in a time of 32.649 sec on Wednesday, one tenth of a second behind the Russian pairing of Anastasia Voinova and Daria Shmeleva.
McCulloch and Morton, teaming up for the first time at any level, posted the second-fastest time in qualifying before returning to the track to post an Australian record of 32.570, eclipsing McCulloch and Anna Meares' five-year-old mark (32.597).
"We had been training really well back home in Adelaide so I just knew tonight I had to do my job, we managed to lift every time, we executed the plan we wanted to," Morton said.
"It was all the little things we got right, our mindset going into each race, that is going to put us in really good stead heading into Tokyo."
Germany held off China to take bronze.
In the men's event, the team of Matthew Glaetzer, Nathan Hart and Jacob Schmid finished sixth overall. New Zealand beat the Netherlands to take gold.
In the men's team pursuit Australia, the reigning champions, will go head-to-head with New Zealand for gold on Thursday after the arch-rivals set a blistering pace in qualifying.
The new-look quartet of Sam Welsford, Cameron Meyer, Kelland O'Brien and Alex Porter qualified fastest with a scorching time of three minutes 50.577 seconds.
Their British arch-rivals set the world record of 3:50.265 at the Rio Olympics.
Great Britain beat Australia in an epic final to win the gold medal for the third-straight Olympics.
Of Wednesday's qualifying quartet, Welsford was the only Rio Olympian and O'Brien is making his senior worlds debut.
Australia dominated qualifying, beating second-fastest New Zealand by a whopping margin of nearly three seconds.
It was also a good start for the Australian women's team pursuiters, who qualified second-fastest behind the United States.
Rio Olympians Amy Cure and Ashlee Ankudinoff combined with Alex Manly and Rebecca Wiasak to clock 4:18.659, behind the Americans' 4:17.722.
The women's first round and final will be held on Thursday.
