Australia are on the medals board after the first full day at cycling's first 'Super World Championships,' but their para-cyclist stars missed out on gold on the track in Glasgow.
With medals up for grabs at the first global championships to feature all cycling disciplines, the great Paralympian Jessica Gallagher and her pilot Caitlin Ward took silver in the tandem B 1km time trial at the Sir Chris Hoy velodrome in the Scottish city on Thursday.
In the men's C2 individual pursuit, another Paralympic champion Darren Hicks also landed silver despite getting pursued and caught in his 3000m final by French champion Alexandre Leaute.
Melbourne's Paige Greco made it a successful first medal session for the Australian challenge, convincingly winning her race for bronze against Sweden's Anna Beck in the women's C3 individual pursuit.
For Adelaide-based Ward and Geelong's amazing 37-year-old Gallagher, the only Australian to win Paralympic medals in both Winter and Summer Games and to have competed in the national team at four different sports – skiing, cycling, athletics and rowing - their near-miss for gold proved agonising.
As the penultimate starters in the final of the event designed for blind and visually impaired cyclists with a sighted pilot, they had moved into gold medal position, clocking 1min 08.362sec over four blistering laps.
And when the final British pairing of Sophie Unwin and Jenny Holl slipped behind the time, still over a second behind going into the last lap, it looked as if they would claim victory.
But the home-based riders had timed their run perfectly, saving their best for last while the Australian duo had been holding on desperately by the end. Ultimately, Unwin and Holl prevailed by just six-hundredths of a second.
Hicks, the 38-year-old who had his right leg amputated above the knee after a truck accident in 2014 and subsequently became a para-cyclist, was no match for Leaute, the 22-year-old who had broken the world record in Wednesday's qualifying round.
Australia's reigning men's team sprint champions launched the defence of their crown in fine fashion with the trio of Leigh Hoffman, Matt Glaetzer and Thomas Cornish qualifying as second-fastest for Friday's opening round behind their perennial Dutch rivals.
The Australians will be able to bring their Commonwealth champion Matt Richardson into the fray on Friday to tackle the Dutch trio headed by 11-time world champ Harrie Lavreysen.
Adelaide's Maeve Plouffe missed out on reaching the bronze-medal race in the women's individual pursuit, finishing as fifth fastest qualifier, with American Chloe Dygert going on to annex gold in the final.
The performance of the day came in the women's team sprint with the German trio of Lea Sophie Friedrich, Pauline Grabosch and Emma Hinze striking gold in the finals with a world record of 45.848sec.
The home fans had something to cheer when Britain's William Tidball took the men's scratch race gold, with Australian Josh Duffy ninth.
Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi will host the 2028 cycling Road World Championships and the 2029 Track World Championships, governing body the UCI has announced.
The event in the United Arab Emirates capital will be the second time the Road World Championships take place in the Middle East after the 2016 edition in Doha, Qatar.
