Ryan Bayley defied a sleepless night to continue his reign as king of the velodrome with his second dominant gold medal of the Commonwealth Games.

Australia's dual Olympic champion took out the sprint to add to his victory in the keirin on Friday and take Australia's tally to six out of the nine gold medals won so far on the track.

England thwarted Australia's bid for another clean sweep at the velodrome, with sprinter Anna Meares and the 4000m teams pursuit settling for silver behind the English.

Meares's big sister Kerrie took the bronze in the sprint which England's Vicki Pendleton won in a thrilling contest over Anna.

But Bayley, who was kept up until after 1am by drug testers, once again proved he is a class above the rest.

"It is hard to beat Olympic gold medals, it is one of the biggest things in the world," Bayley said.

"But the Commonwealth Games are absolutely massive. This is not far short of Olympic gold."

After a shock in the first race of the best-of-three final in which he needed all his power to fly home from behind to nab Scotland's Ross Edgar right on the line, Bayley blew his opponent away in the second race to win 2-0.

He changed tactics and took the lead at the bell, racing away from the Scot who had no chance of catching the world's fastest cyclist. Bayley breezed over the line after covering the last 200m in 10.639secs.

After a disastrous 2005, when his form and motivation went missing, Bayley was surprised at his own form.

"Probably three weeks ago, I started to really step it up and a week and a half to two weeks beforehand I was starting to do some really good times," he said.

"I didn't expect the form to come up this good."

Bayley is now aiming for a hat-trick of gold in Sunday's teams sprint with Shane Kelly and Shane Perkins.

Meares's hopes of a second gold to add to her 500m time trial victory were dashed by world champion Pendleton in a thrilling three-race contest.

In the decisive third race, Meares went early and led the Englishwoman throughout the frantic last lap, before Pendleton caught the Queenslander metres from the line to win England's third cycling gold by the barest of margins.

Anna had knocked her sister and defending champion Kerrie out of the semi-finals, coming from behind in both races to win 2-0.

Kerrie claimed her second bronze of the Games when she beat New Zealand's Elisabeth Williams 2-0.

England's second gold at the track came when it ended Australia's domination of the teams pursuit, but the home team was missing its world and Olympic champions.

The English, headed by Paul Manning, Rob Hayles and Stephen Cumming took gold, silver and bronze in the individual pursuit on Thursday and, with the support of Chris Newton, were never threatened in the final.

They thrashed the Australians in the gold medal race by nearly three seconds in a time of 4:02.699, the first time since 1990 Australia has not won the Commonwealth Games teams pursuit.

Australia has dominated the event worldwide in the last four years, but was without world and Olympic champions and world record holders Brad McGee, Graeme Brown, Brett Lancaster and Luke Roberts who were not released by their professional European road teams.

Peter Dawson, Mark Jamieson, Stephen Wooldridge and Matt Goss stepped in to carry the home team's hopes and were disappointed with silver, but encouraged by their potential for the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

"I'm a little disappointed, we wanted to win, we always want to win and we wanted to win in Melbourne," Wooldridge said.

"On the flipside, I don't think we should be disgraced, we put it to them as much as we could tonight."

Meares was also dissatisfied with silver, but was pleased with her return to form after a debilitating back injury which doctors said would keep her out of the Games.

"I'm sort of disappointed. But I'm calling it my white gold medal," she said.

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