Australia's Matthew Richardson took first place in the UCI Track Champions League men's sprint category.

Richardson won the Keirin to surpass his rival Harry Lavriesen, but Lavriesen's victory in the individual sprint reduced the five-point gap to just two points.

The overall winner will be decided in the final round of the Track Champions League on Saturday night in London. On Friday, however, Richardson faced a ferocious foe following his victory in the Keirin at Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines last week.

"It was very simple. Harry was very cautious at the front. I managed to hold on with one lap to go, leaving one last acceleration," Richardson said after the race.

But Lavriesen then followed up his victory in the men's sprint final in France with another victory in the British capital. And once again, Richardson was the man for Lavriesen to beat.

"Matthew went first, which was nice," Lavriesen told reporters.

"But I figured if he wasn't going to do it, I didn't want to do it either."

"He had really good tactics. But I was able to cross the finish line."

Lavriesen said he will rest as much as possible before Saturday's showdown: "I'm going to recover as much as possible and lie in bed all day. I'm going to recover as much as I can and lie in bed all day. I've only got two points, so you never know what's going to happen."

While the men's sprint is still in the balance, in the other fiercely contested category, the women's endurance, league leader Jennifer Valente (USA) has put some important distance between her and her key challenger Katie Archibald (UK).

Archibald finished second in the scratch race behind Ireland's Emily Kay and briefly took the overall league lead. However, the American rider got his revenge when Valente won the elimination race in which Archibald finished seventh.

"In the elimination race, there's actually not that much strategy because you can't go out," Valente said after the race. 'You can't try to recover, you can't lower your heart rate, and in a bike race you have to be pretty active and present in each moment. You can't control what other people are doing, and I think I rode the same way I've always done."

"I think you can look at your own performance and take the positives and negatives out of any race. The scoreboard shows (me) in first place, but I think there are positives and negatives today, just like in previous rounds."

Archibald, who is currently eight points behind, admitted that the chances of overtaking the Americans in the final round on Saturday evening "are not good." Kay, however, was ecstatic about her comeback-like scratch race victory.

"It's huge for me," he said. I've been out of the sport for a while." I fell at the Olympics and didn't do well. So I've been looking for a result that I could be proud of. It's the best competition in the world, so I can't not be happy with this result. I've been chasing it for a long time."

In the other two categories, France's Mathilde Gros and Switzerland's Claudio Imhoff held their respective lead in the women's sprint and men's endurance. Imhoff finished two points ahead of Switzerland's Imhoff in the overall points standings, with Spain's Sebastian Mora finishing fourth behind Britain's Will Perrett. Mora finished third in eliminations and tied on points with Imhoff.

Perret's victory was the only win for the local rider. His first win of the season came in front of his home crowd, and with his family watching.

"It couldn't have been better. I knew I needed to take a lap. I'm more of a bunch race and aerobics rider, not a sprinter. There are some incredibly fast sprinters out there, and if you can get them to the line, you lose. That's just the way it is," Perrette said after the race.

"But they don't have the energy that I have. At the start they hung around near the back and didn't do much work. There's no point in doing things halfway, otherwise you just lose energy."

In other events, Steffie van der Peet (Netherlands) won the women's keirin for the second time, Ukraine's Olena Starikova outpaced overall leader Gro in the women's sprint, and Gavin Huber (USA) won the men's eliminations.

The UCI Track Champions League concludes this Saturday with the final of a two-match series at Lee Valley Velo Park in London.