U.S. teenager Taylor Phinney grabbed gold in the men's pursuit at the world track cycling championships in Pruszkow of Poland on Thursday.

Phinney, 1.93 meters tall, overcame a strong challenge from Australian Jack Bobridge, who finished second.

Belgian Dominique Cornu won bronze after beating Volodymyr Dyudya.

Born in Boulder, Colorado, Phinney is the son of successful cycling parents.

Father Davis won bronze in the 100km team time trial in 1984, the same year his mother Connie Carpenter won gold in the women's road race.

Phinney finished seventh at the Beijing Olympic and won both the pursuit and the kilometre events at the Copenhagen round of the track World Cup last month.

"After the Olympics it (title) definitely wasn't on my radar for another couple of years, but I learned how to do everything right and now it's paying off," said Phinney, who admits he might have a slight advantage over his rivals.

With 2008 world and Olympic champion Bradley Wiggins not competing, the way was open for the likes of Phinney, considered the new sensation of American cycling, to strike gold.

In what turned out to be a battle of the 19-year-olds in the final, Bobridge fought valiantly, keeping Phinney within his sights over a tight first half of the race.

However, Phinney soon began to edge ahead, and by the 3000m mark took his advantage to 0.5 seconds over Bobridge.

In the end Phinney finished in a time of 4:17.631 to become the first American champion in the 4km event since Mike McCarthy in 1992.

(Xinhua News Agency March 27, 2009)