Shake-up bears fruit as Australia’s cyclists get back on track | Kieran Pender
12 December 2019 01:47
Rio dejection has given way to Tokyo hope with Australia tipped for success at this weekend’s Track Cycling World Cup in Brisbane 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. Related: Rohan Dennis to make debut in Australia after signing for Team Ineos Related: Hannah Dines on going public with her labia surgery: ‘It started a big conversation’ Continue readingread full article
