Australia are business as usual after Matt Richardson's stunning withdrawal and have qualified fastest in the men's team sprint at Commonwealth Games track cycling.
Richardson was due to fly into Glasgow from Japan on Thursday's opening day of the Games track cycling program.
But the England team dropped a bombshell on Wednesday, announcing he was out of the Games because of his crash earlier this week while racing in the Japan keirin series.
Richardson defected from Australia to Great Britain days after winning three medals in track cycling at the Paris Olympics.
His match-up with top Australian sprinter Leigh Hoffman was set to be one of the biggest storylines of the Glasgow Games.
Richardson's Japan commitments meant he only would have raced the sprint at the Sir Chris Hoy velodrome, not the team sprint or keirin.
Australian team sprint lead-off rider Ryan Elliott said they would have preferred for Richardson to race, but the news had done nothing to their focus.
"Obviously, you always want that match-up ... rather than have them not be here," he said.
"So there's a little bit of 'oomph' for that.
"We're here to do our job and so we stay focused on that. We definitely notice what's going on - we were probably one of the first people to receive the news.
"But we just keeping forward."
Australia will race against England on Friday morning (AEST) for the gold medal after Elliott, Hoffman and Dan Barber clocked 42.754 seconds.
The English were .045 seconds slower to also reach the gold medal ride.
"We definitely think we can build upon that and make it a more confident lead in the final," said Elliott, who has the crucial starter role and will only ride in the team sprint at the Games.
The two Australian team pursuit squads also qualified fastest to ride in their day-one finals - the men against England and the women against New Zealand.
The women's team sprinters had the fourth-fastest time and will go up against Scotland for the bronze medal.
Para-sport veteran Jess Gallagher and her pilot Jacqueline Mengler-Mohr will ride off for gold against New Zealand in the women's tandem B sprint.
Tara Neyland also qualfied fastest in the C4-5 women's 3000m individual pursuit and Kane Peris will have Luke Zaccaria as his pilot in the men's tandem B 1km time trial.
