In the tightest final of the World Cup so far Dawkins came from behind in the last 50 metres to win the men's keirin just 500ths of a second ahead of Quentin Lafargue from France at the Avantidrome. 

Japan’s Yudai Nitta came third just 0.02 seconds further back.

“I went through the bell about 50 metres off the front guy and I was panicking a wee bit, but the nature of being on the front early means you burn a lot of candles and I managed to use the slipstream off Quentin Lafargue and shot past him, and it gave me the momentum to catch first place,” he said.

The 2018 Commonwealth team sprint champion added that it was “huge” to have done it on home soil.

“The fans and the crowd give a lot of motivation to us Kiwis, and you can see it in the performances,” he said.

“You can see stuff that’s maybe not expected, times that are super, super world-class that shouldn’t be happening that this time of the year.”

Four-time world junior champion Stewart and the 2013 world omnium champion Gate claimed New Zealand's other victory today.

In a dominant display the pair lapped the rest of the field twice to win an event which will appear at the Olympic Games for the first time at Tokyo 2020.

Not only did they gain two laps on their opponents, the home pair also won points in 10 of the 12 sprints to finish on 76 points overall.

The Dutch pairing of Yoeri Havik and Roy Pieters finished second with 30 points, while the United States claimed bronze through Daniel Holloway and Adrian Hegyvary, who scored 26 points.

The win for Stewart capped an impressive couple of days as he was also part of the men’s pursuit team which set a new national record on their way to victory yesterday.

“Aaron really pushed it to get that first lap and then initiated the second as well, and I just kind off had to follow and keep pace,” he said.

“I think every time I swung up, I tried to get as much rest and then hit it, gain a bit more distance and then we just consolidated.”

The men’s 15 kilometres scratch race was won by Christos Volikakis, who finished ahead of Switzerland’s Thery Schir and Stefan Matzner from Austria.

The individual women's sprint title was claimed by Hong Kong’s Wai Sze Lee, who beat Ukraine’s Olena Starikova in both races in the final, while the bronze was claimed by Australia’s Kaarle McCulloch.

Australia’s Annette Edmonson finished first in the 7.5km women’s omnium ahead of Italy’s Elisa Balsamo and Japan’s Yumi Kajihara.