Australian sprinter Leigh Hoffman has risen to the occasion at the 2025 UCI Track World Championships in Santiago by winning an impressive keirin silver medal.
The South Australian claimed the first individual Track Worlds medal of his career by finishing behind the Netherlands' Harrie Lavreysen.
The Dutch 18-time world champion launched an audacious attack coming into the finalists seeing two laps to go and immediately opened a gap to chasing five, who were led by Hoffman in the sprinter's lane.
The 25-year-old from Whyalla responded quickly, held his position in the lane and his rivals at bay to cross the line 0.107 seconds after Lavreysen, and 0.080 ahead of his Dutch teammate Jeffrey Hoogland.
An elated Hoffman said the moment was "pretty surreal".
"I’ve really focused solely on team sprint the last four years and raced the individual sprint for the first time at the last World Championships," he added.
"Now I’ve been training for position two, it’s given me the flexibility to race all events, so for my first time riding a world champs keirin, coming away with a silver feels amazing.
"I had to move up early with Hoog in order to not miss the jump, it felt like a front runners track and every ride I’d done that day was long but worth it.
"Honestly, I felt like I missed the move but then put in 100 per cent and used my acceleration to match it. It worked almost perfectly and ended up being a long sprint. I was seeing stars after it."
Thrust into the spotlight in the last 12 months as Australia's number one sprinter, Hoffman has managed the pressure convincingly, which started with winning both the national and Oceania sprint titles earlier this year.
"With my role in the team sprint going from training for 250 metres max to now 500 metres, my training has extended out. The longer efforts are hard but have paid off," he said.
"I'm looking forward to next year when I get a lot of racing in with three World Cups and also the Commonwealth Games to get as much exposure possible with the individual racing, as I’ve missed out on a lot of development due to training solely for team sprint.
"I’m excited for this new role within the team sprint and look forward to exploring individual racing too."
ARA Australian Cycling Team teammate Danny Barber was unable to progress from the quarterfinal stage and finished his maiden individual Track Worlds event in 13th.
Result - Men Keirin
🥇 Harrie Lavreysen (Netherlands)
🥈 Leigh Hoffman (Australia)
🥉 Jeffrey Hoogland (Netherlands)
...
13th - Danny Barber (Australia)
Feature picture: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com