France finished off a perfect evening at the world track cycling championships yesterday, winning the team sprint in the gold-medal final over Spain after teammate Franck Perque won the 40-kilometer points race.

　　After leading 15 countries in the first round of qualifying and again after the final eight, France's Mickael Bourgain, Laurent Gane and Arnaud Tournant finished the gold medal final in 44:394 seconds, the fastest time of the night.

　　Spain, with riders Jose Antonio Escuredo Raimondez, Salvador Melia and Jose Antonio Villanueva Trinidad, finished in 44.824 to take the silver.

　　The British team of Craig McLean, Jason Queally and Jamie Staff took bronze with a time of 44.620, beating defending champion Germany in the third-place final.

　　Earlier, Perque took the lead after 10 of 16 sprints and held on to win the points race, his second world title in three years.

　　Perque, who won the 50-km Madison with French teammate Jerome Neuville in 2002, finished with 35 points in the opening final of the five-night world titles at the Vodafone Arena in Melbourne.

　　Milton Wynants of Uruguay was second with 31, while the bronze medal went to Juan Esteban Curuchet of Argentina, who finished with 28.

　　Defending champion Franz Stocher of Austria was in third place midway through the 160-lap race, but faded to finish seventh with 23 points.

　　In the points race, final placings are determined according to accumulated points won by riders during sprints or by taking laps on their opponents. Points - 5, 3, 2, 1 - are awarded to the first four across the line in the intermediate sprints held every 10 laps and at the finish.

　　The championships are the last chance for countries to qualify for places at the Athens Olympics.

　　(The Associated Press)