Leigh Hoffman has laid down the gauntlet to former track cycling Matt Richardson after dominating the match sprint at the Commonwealth Games.

This event was supposed to be one of the top stories of the Glasgow Games, given Richardson’s stunning defection from Australia to Great Britain after winning three medals at the Paris Olympics.

But Richardson pulled out of Glasgow after a nasty crash while racing in the Japan keirin series.

Instead, Hoffman set a Games record in 200m qualifying and then tore through the field on Sunday morning (AEST), beating Trinidad and Tobago’s Nicholas Paul two heats to nil in the final.

Fellow Australian Tayte Ryan, who lost to Hoffman in the semi-finals, won bronze.

Day three of the Games track cycling also ended with a crash that took out seven riders on the second-last lap of men’s scratch race.

Malaysian rider New Joe Lau was stretchered off the velodrome, Grenada’s Red Walters has a suspected broken collarbone and Canadian Jonathan Hinse also needed medical attention.

The three Australians in the field avoided the pile-up and Tom Cornish won silver.

Claudia Marcks also won a surprise silver in the women’s 1km time trial, but Georgia Baker did not add to her gold medal haul, claiming bronze in the women’s points race.

For all the obvious rivalry, Hoffman said he felt for Richardson.

“It’s horrible, it was such a hard crash. His was definitely intentional, so I don’t know why that’s happened,” Hoffman said after a keirin rival sideswiped Richardson.

“It would have been great if he was here, I could see how I stack up against him, but we’ll have to see if he can beat my Commonwealth Games record, or I can beat it again next time.”

Richardson is a touchy subject for the Welsh cycling team, which features his girlfriend Emma Finucane. When an Australian journalist asked the three-time Glasgow Games gold medallist how Richardson is, a Welsh official later asked that questions be kept to her racing.

Until Hoffman and his teammates won the team sprint on day one at the velodrome, they had also been tight-lipped about Richardson.

But they opened up after the team sprint gold, when Hoffman declared “good riddance”.

After his sprint gold, Hoffman was asked about Richardson’s pre-Games comment that he only had one bike while racing for Australia, and now he travels with five.

“Every time I see an article it goes up ... I think eight bikes now, it just keeps going up and up and up,” Hoffman said.

“I only need one bike to get the job done.”

Hoffman said his silver medal the day before in the keirin gave him “a bit of fire”, adding Australia’s strong cycling performance in Glasgow was a good sign two years out from the Olympics.

“The message to send is in LA, we’ll all be firing on all cylinders,” he said.

Australia lead the cycling gold tally at the Games with seven.

William and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales, and their three children, plus Edward and Sophie, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, were at the velodrome early in the medal session.

Marcks, who won gold in the women’s team pursuit, was a surprise medallist in the 1km time trial.

Showing her track endurance pedigree, Marcks was only 13th fastest after the first of four laps. But she powered home ad only Finucane could beat her.

Baker’s bronze in the 25km women’s points race means her bid to become the first Australian cyclist to win six Games gold medals will come down to the elimination race on the last day of competition

Baker has won two gold medals in Glasgow.

Jess Gallagher and her pilot Jacqui Mengler-Mohr took silver behind New Zealand in the tandem B 1km time trial.

Kane Perris and pilot Luke Zaccaria beat Malaysia in the bronze-medal ride-off for the men’s tandem B sprint.