Who is anna meares sister

Competing in a Keirin event at the Cycling World Cup in Los Angeles, she tapped the back wheel of another competitor after a collision occurred in front of her — crashing onto the velodrome surface at more than 60 kilometres an hour.

Meares tore several ligaments and tendons in her shoulder, heavily bruised her right hip, suffered burns from sliding along the wooden track and fractured her neck. Scans later revealed Meares was two millimetres away from a clean break of her CT vertebrae, an injury that could have resulted in quadriplegia or death. Smiling through the pain: Anna Meares speaks to the media in Adelaide nine days after her near-tragic crash in Los Angeles.

She says her determination to compete at the Beijing Games was a major factor in motivating her comeback. During a gruelling rehab process, Meares was locked in a struggle between her mental and physical states. Her mindset would eventually win the struggle and propel her to Beijing where she competed in front of her parents at an Olympic Games for the first time of her career.

She made it all the way to the sprint final against Victoria Pendleton, falling just short of a historic gold medal. Meares said her opinion of this silver medal has evolved over time after the initial disappointment of finishing second place.

Knowing she would have to beat Pendleton to claim gold, Meares and her team got to work on breaking down hundreds of hours of footage of her rival, mimicking her movements in training, devising strategies and drilling in mental habits to rely on when the final race arrived. Her team eventually settled on a strategy of forcing Pendleton to the front of the race, as statistics showed the British rider won less when leading before the final sprint.

Meares also had to sacrifice success in other world title events to keep her strategy a secret from Pendleton. Meares lost the first race to Pendleton by a thousandth of a second 0. With just one victory standing between them and what they had worked nearly four years for, Meares and coach West decided to play their trump card.

As the second race got underway, Mears — leading Pendleton on the first lap — unexpectedly climbed to the top of the track and came to a near standstill, delicately balancing her bike until Pendleton was forced to take her unpreferred position at the front of the race. Two laps later, Meares stormed passed her opponent on the back straight, rounded the final turn, and lifted her right arm before crossing the line to take gold in an iconic Australian sporting moment.

Kerrie Meares, one year older than Anna, launched the family dominance winning the inaugural m Track Time Trial at the Manchester Commonwealth Games. Fifteen years and four Games later, only Meares sisters have won this event. In the race, Anna Meares and Victoria Pendleton finished just off the podium in fourth and fifth places respectively. Pendleton was relegated to the bronze medal race, which she lost to Anna.

Four years on at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games the rivalry was at a peak with the three cyclists winning all the medals in the Individual Sprint and m Time Trial.

Pendleton defeated Anna in the Individual Sprint final, with Kerrie winning the bronze. Anna, who said the sprint loss motivated her for yesterday's race, won her third gold of the meeting, capping off her best all-round performance at the nationals.

Meares is now hoping for an equally consistent performance at next month's world championships in Majorca, Spain, and believes she can shave even more off her metre time-trial world record that she set in Athens and bettered at the Sydney World Cup last year.

Kersten, on the comeback trail following back surgery last year, won both his pet event, the one-kilometre time-trial, and the men's omnium, a five-event points contest that was held for the first time at national level. While pleased to return to the winner's podium, Kersten said he had a long way to go to return to the kind of form that won him time-trial gold at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games and silver at last year's world championships in France.

Kersten ruled out being a serious contender at the world titles, saying: "Although I am back, I'm not at world championships level, unfortunately.