The pair were Australia’s hopes for cycling gold but Aussies in the Olympic velodrome showed noisy support as the women’s team were announced bronze winners.
China were initially announced as gold medal winners but wee then relegated, putting Germany into gold.
Meares and McCulloc were in front by 0.733 at the midway point and powered into the bronze medal spot in 37.727, a comfortable 0.764 seconds ahead of Ukraine.
It was Australia’s second medal of the day.
Meares is already an Olympic gold medallist from Athens in 2004 in the individual time trial and she has also won bronze and silver at the past two Olympics in the individual sprint.
Meares and McCulloch were the gold medal favourites in the women’s team sprint at most Australian bookies this morning.
Final results of women’s cycling team sprint
Gold medal: Germany (Miriam Welte and Kristina Vogel)
Silver medal: China (Jinjie Gong and Shuang Guo)
Bronze medal: Australia (Anna Meares and Kaarle McCulloch)
