Spurred by their “kick in the arse” at last year’s world championships, Sam Welsford and his fellow Australian track cycling team pursuiters have a point to prove.
The perennial Olympic medal contenders plan to be among the pacesetters when the Tokyo track cycling program starts on Monday afternoon at Izu Velodrome.
The women’s team pursuit will also have its qualifying round, with the women’s team sprint the only medals to be decided.
But the retirement of Stephanie Morton and a dearth of talent depth in women’s track sprinting means the team sprint, which was one of Anna Meares’ signature events, will not feature an Australian combination.
While Australia certainly has the talent to contend in the team pursuits, Monday’s qualifying runs will be telling.
The last major international track competition was the world championships in February last year, when Australia focused on the planned 2020 Olympics and trained through the event.
It was a disaster, with the men and women among the failures as they finished outside the team pursuit medals and Australian cycling’s high performance director Simon Jones famously taking aim at the critics with an expletive-punctuated Tweet.
Australia will start second-last in qualifying for the men’s, courtesy of their silver medal behind Great Britain at the Rio Games, and Welsford expects to be in the mix.
“We’re definitely going better than worlds last year, that was our kick in the arse,” he said.
“Tomorrow, I think the world record is going to go multiple times and hopefully we’re the last one to set the new one.
“It’s going to be crazy.”
Likewise, when asked how the women team pursuiters have performed in training, all Annette Edmondson would say is that they are going “quickly”.
The lead-up to the Tokyo track program has appeared much smoother than Rio, when Australia was plagued by setbacks and disasters.
The hopes of the women’s team pursuiters to claim a breakthrough Olympic medal was dashed when there was a crash in training.
The body language in the Australian team pits was terrible and Meares’ keirin bronze was their only other medal.
“Rio was a very tough year, for the whole team,” Welsford said.
“It’s not your team that crashed, but it impacts everyone, because we are one team.
“We all feel for them.
“It wasn’t our best Olympics, but we’ve learned so much from that campaign and we’ve really turned it around.”
Morale also has been boosted by other cycling disciplines, with bronze to Rohan Dennis in the road time trial and Logan Martin’s historic BMX freestyle gold.
“It’s huge, us Australians are really supportive of each other and we love seeing all aspects of cycling get up for success,” Welsford said.
“Rohan’s ride was incredible and Logan’s just as much.
“We all get along with him, we all want to follow in their footsteps.”
AAP
