Nicholas Paul was de­nied a sec­ond gold medal in as many events at the 22nd Com­mon­wealth Games (CG) in Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land af­ter he lost out to Aus­tralian Matthew Richard­son in two straight rides in their best-of-three men's Match Sprint fi­nal at the Lee Val­ley VeloPark in Strat­ford on Sun­day.

Less than 24 hours af­ter the 23-year-old Paul’s gold­en ride in the men’s keirin fi­nal to land this coun­try's first medal by a lo­cal cy­clist since Roger Gib­bon won two gold medals at the 1966 edi­tion of the CG in Kingston, Ja­maica, com­pet­ing in the men’s sprint and 1km Time Tri­al events, Paul again start­ed as the favourite in the fi­nal against the 22-year-old Aussie.

How­ev­er, the UCI Train­ing Cen­tre in Swiz­ter­land-based Paul nev­er got in­to his full stride in any of the two rides, first los­ing by +0.029 sec­onds and then +0.628 sec­onds in the must-win sec­ond ride.

Ear­li­er in the morn­ing ses­sion, Paul who came in­to the games on the back of vic­to­ries at the last round of the Tis­sot UCI Track Na­tions Cup in Cali, Colom­bia where he was rac­ing for the first time af­ter break­ing his col­lar­bone in April at the first round of the UCI Track Na­tions Cup, in Glas­gow, Scot­land was the fastest qual­i­fi­er of the 26 rid­ers in 9.445 sec­onds with a Games Record av­er­age speed of 76.231 while Richard­son was sec­ond fastest in 9.598 fol­lowed by Scot­land's Jack Car­lin (9.599), Aus­tralians Matthew Glaet­zer (9.652), and Thomas Cor­nish (9.747).

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