Melbourne’s Tara Neyland has dominated the C4−C5 Women’s Individual Pursuit, setting a new world record en route to winning the gold medal at the Commonwealth Games on July 30 at the Chris Hoy Meladrone.

In qualifying the night before Neyland, who is classified as a C4 athlete, set a new benchmark of 4:49.648 over 4,000 metres at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome in Glasgow, Scotland.

So phenomenal was her time that it was over 20 seconds faster than her nearest competitor after factoring – adjustment according to athletes’ impairments – was taken into account.

In the final, Neyland put down another flawless ride of 4:50.477 to claim victory by 19 seconds over England’s Morgan Newberry. The result on day seven of the games is just the latest in a string of achievements for the 32-year-old, who won an incredible five world championships last year across track and road cycling.

“I had big hopes and I really wanted to try and execute the plan and stay calm,” Neyland said. “And I was really glad to pull it together.”

A newcomer to Para cycling, having only started racing last year, this Commonwealth Games debut was by far the biggest stage she’d competed on.