Anna Meares' scorching world record spearheaded a successful day for Australia's female cyclists at the Sydney UCI World Track Cycling Cup.

Meares broke her own world record en-route to gold in the 500m time trial at the Dunc Gray Velodrome before returning to the track with her sister Kerrie to win a second gold in the women's team sprint.

Katie Mactier also won gold for Australia in the individual pursuit.

Meares, who almost quit the sport last year after suffering a serious back injury, shaved eight thousandths of a second off the time she set winning gold at the Athens Olympics, posting 33.944 in finishing ahead of Lithuanian Simona Krupeckaite and Yvonne Hijgenaar of the Netherlands.

Meares said her recovery from the injury and preparation for the event had been "faultless".

"Things have been stepping up slowly each week, times were improving and power was improving and I thought if I could ride a 34.5 I would have been really ecstatic with that," Meares said.

"And when I looked up, I saw (eight-time world champion) Natalia's (Tsylnskaya) time first and I thought, 'Nice time', and then mine was flashing and it caught my eye ... 'What the ... Oh my God' ... I won't say what I thought.

"I thought it was possible, simply because this season I've had an uninterrupted preparation and the back injury has just gone."

Anna and older sister Kerrie combined later to score a thrilling win over Germany's Jane Gerisch and Dana Gloss, with the home crowd cheering the pair to Australia's fourth gold medal of the meet.

Kerrie said she was inspired by her sister's brilliant world record run earlier in the day.

"How could you not be?," she said.

"I'm lucky enough to have her as a sister let alone a training partner. I've always got a world and Olympic champion to chase."

Mactier, the 2005 world champion, was too good for Great Britain's Wendy Houvenhagel in the final of the individual pursuit and was delighted with the win despite posting a faster time in qualifying.

"It's a world cup race, the first of the series and to be honest, the time was a bit academic. It was really just about winning the race and qualifying my spot for the world championships," Mactier said.

"I was very motivated because my boyfriend (New Zealand's Greg Henderson) just won a silver medal in the points (race) so that was a nice way to warm up to my race."

In the men's events, Mark French led the way for Australia in the sprint after Ryan Bayley failed to qualify for the quarter finals, coming unstuck against eventual sixth place-getter Poland's Lukasz Kwiatkowski.

French finished fourth, losing to Dutchman Teun Mulder two-nil in the best-of-three bronze medal races.

Commonwealth Games gold medallist Sean Finning did not finish the men's points race while Australia's men's pursuit team narrowly missed out on qualifying for their final.

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