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AusCycling has gone in a new direction for the next Olympic cycle on the track, with their Performance Endurance track cycling program the first in the world to base training and staffing on event specialties rather than a gendered approach.
There is also a marked shift from everything being based out of the Australian Cycling Team hub in the Adelaide Superdrome to a world-spanning clutch of elite athletes, with many of the 2021 Olympians now riding as professionals on the road in the World Tour.
Australian Cycling Team’s timed events coach, Tim Decker, talked to SBS Sport about learning from Tokyo in the build towards the 2024 Paris Olympics.
“At the Tokyo Olympics, that was certainly the flavour of that Olympics,” said Decker to SBS Sport, “with the road riders coming back to the track and having success… but at previous Olympics it’s been track-specific riders dominating.
“This time round, particularly in the women’s, we’ve got a lot of professional women riders who have put their hands up to compete in the Olympic Games. We’ve also had a number of men put their hands up as well.
“The key is how it fits in and the second thing is the communication, structure and goal-setting for those athletes. Once they become professional athletes on the road, they obviously have goals there as well, which is not a bad thing, we just have to work with those.
“We’ve seen how effective with other nations it’s been coming back to the track from the road, we’ll be following a similar trend to assist those riders to qualify for the Olympics.”
Think the likes of Filippo Ganna and Simone Consonni coming off the road into the winning Italian men’s team pursuit squad, or Lisa Brennauer and Lisa Klein powering a German Olympic gold medal in the women’s team pursuit.
However, that will not mean that there won’t be any locally based riders pushing for selection, with younger riders potentially able to recreate the late rises of Luke Plapp and Maeve Plouffe into the squad ala the Tokyo Olympics. Decker said that he was looking to create an atmosphere of competition to drive each member on to greater heights.
“A World Tour rider who doesn’t put the work in… just because they’re WorldTour doesn’t mean it will just happen for them,” said Decker. “The Australian-based riders, they have to step to be the quality of rider to someone who can ride the 3:44 or under and the World Tour riders need to make sure that they don’t lose their strength, power and speed so they can ride that 3:44 as well.
“There has to be some pressure in the training environment, you don’t win an Olympic gold medal just being comfortable.”
“That will go for the women as well, we have a number of Australian-based females who are quite competitive and can potentially have an impact on the Olympic squad, and even if they don’t make it they’ve still had an impact to make each other better. On a team front, there can’t be just four riders, you need external pressure to get them to raise each other’s levels.”
To that end, Decker is organising time on track for the riders with road responsibilities, training camps and trying to mix that in with developing locally based talent.
“It will vary depending on the athlete and how much they have behind them in regards to track work,” said Decker. “Someone like Sam Welsford has a long track background behind and a huge amount of strength work that’s starting to show through on the road in his sprint finishes. He’ll adapt back to the track quicker than some as he has that foundation there.
“We’ve also got training camps planned and also making sure people aren’t spending long periods of time away from the track over that last 12 months (leading into the Olympics).”
“At this stage, everyone seems keen and wanting to buy into that process. This year up until the world championships will probably look a bit different to what the year leading into the Olympics will, but it’s all part of the plan.”
The Australian teams’ recent hit out on the track at the UCI Track Nations Cup in Jakarta was a modest success, with the team pursuit squads scooping up valuable points for Olympic qualification, even if the times weren’t the sort to make headlines with the rapid rise in the benchmark in recent years.
“It was a good start for the Olympic qualifying,” said Decker. “The guys team showed some promise with some younger riders coming in and riding a 3:50, but they were also very consistent across the board. The young guys have added some new enthusiasm and firepower to the group.
“For our women, they ran fourth as well, but they came off a completely different preparation as a number of them had ridden the UAE Tour. They only arrived back in Australia on the Wednesday morning and we left the following Monday, so they didn’t have much preparation on the track. It was still a solid result for Olympic qualifying.”
The endurance bunch events weren’t as successful for the Australian contingent, but the track sprinter, particularly on the men’s side showed again why they’re the world champions with another team sprint gold.
There still exists time for bolters for Olympic selection to emerge, perhaps through the Track National Championships to be shown on SBS from March 15-19, but there are already plenty of riders ‘putting their hand up’ to be part of Australia’s push for gold in Paris. This might create difficulties for some, but Decker is looking forward to pushing the athletes to achieve their best, even if it makes for tricky choices picking the squad.
“I wouldn’t say they’re selection headaches, they’re opportunities,” said Decker. “Chances to win an Olympic gold, even any medal, it’s not easy.”
Watch all the night session action from the 2023 Auscycling Track Cycling National Championships on
