Australia’s track cyclists travelled to Rio de Janeiro in August 2016 with high hopes. The Australian Olympic Committee had predicted that the team would return from the Olympics with three gold medals. They had collected two gold, two silvers and a bronze medal just months earlier at the UCI Track World Championships. With the AOC and Australian Institute of Sport desperate to halt the nation’s slide down the Olympic medal tally, track cycling was seen as a safe bet.
They returned dejected. Two medals – one silver and one bronze – were all that Australia’s track cyclists had to show for millions of dollars of funding and thousands of hours of exertion at Cycling Australia’s high performance headquarters in Adelaide. “We did not have a great performance in Rio,” admits Steph Morton, who finished fourth in the team sprint. “It was hard to handle coming home,” says Annette Edmondson, part of the team pursuit squad that had their medal hopes dashed when they crashed in training.
Turmoil ensued. A new high performance tsar was recruited, coaches were sacked and riders exited the program. The training regime was overhauled and even the team’s branding was refreshed. Englishman Simon Jones, who took over in early 2017 and led much of the change, soon earned a nickname among colleagues: “Hurricane”.
The disruption worked. Australia topped the medal tally at the 2017 Track World Championships, placed equal third in 2018 and were again at the top in March this year (equal with the Netherlands). Of the 16 track gold medals available at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, Australia took home 10.
“We came back from Rio and had a really thorough review of where we went wrong and how we could do better next time,” says Morton, the reigning team sprint world champion. “That has been really critical. After two successful competitions everyone is buzzing, everyone is motivated, as we get towards the pointy end.”
Morton, Jones and the entire team know these recent successes will count for little if they again flop at the Olympics. With barely seven months until Tokyo 2020, the pressure is growing. Last weekend, the Australians collected one gold and a handful of other medals at the New Zealand leg of the Track World Cup. On Friday, the latest edition begins in Brisbane, with more opportunities for the nation’s track cyclists to test themselves on the international stage.
“It will be stiff competition,” says sprinter Matthew Glaetzer, who will race this weekend despite a recent cancer diagnosis. “The Dutch boys have been doing really well, and there are some young guys coming up. They will all be a challenge, but I have got the better of them in the past.”
Australia’s team pursuit squad will be hoping to repeat this year’s world championship heroics, where both the men and women overcame their British counterparts to claim gold. The Australians are also strong medal prospects in the Madison, another Olympic event.
Relentlessly scrutinising these performances will be Jones, formerly of British Cycling and Team Sky. “Every success and every failure offers a lesson to be learned,” Jones says. “We have learned things from 2016. Every world championships and every Olympics is a different challenge – we have to keep learning. We have already scheduled our post-Tokyo debrief.”
Jones has brought a new-found emphasis on innovation and iteration to Cycling Australia’s high performance program. The squad is believed to be trialling a range of technical and tactical advancements to give them an edge in Tokyo, although details remain secret – the arms race between major cycling nations does not permit transparency.
After almost three years at the helm, Jones is positive as Tokyo comes into view. “I don’t have a crystal ball,” he says. “We are certainly planning to be more successful than in 2016. We have a target. I cannot control everything – what happens, happens – but I think we are in a good place. I am quietly confident.”
As in 2016, Australia’s track cyclists will – at least on current form – head to the Olympics with high hopes. Only time can tell whether Tokyo will prove a happier hunting ground. “You never really know how the team will perform. If we knew, it would be a pretty boring job!” Jones says. But following his intervention, one thing is certain: the riders will return to a celebration – already scheduled, in addition to the debrief.
“Whether we win or lose, we will come home and celebrate,” he says. “We want to celebrate doing the best we could possibly do with the time, resources and knowledge that we have. We will be judged externally by the medals that we win, but we can’t really control the winning. All we can do is try our best.”
