On Monday the Australian track cycling team gathered in a hotel meeting room in central Berlin to debrief following the UCI track world championships. It would not have been an easy conversation.
The Australians travelled to Germany with modest expectations, having repeatedly stressed their focus was on the 2020 Olympics. Even against this lowered benchmark, the team fell short. “I would be lying if I said this wasn’t a surprise,” said Simon Jones, Cycling Australia’s performance director. “The world has moved on.”
On Tuesday the Australians fly home with zero gold medals, one silver and two bronze. It is the first time since 2008 that Australia has not secured at least one world title. As records fell on a nightly basis, the Australians were conspicuously absent from the medal podium. “We can’t hide from this,” Jones said. “We can’t go on as normal.”
At one level the results were unsurprising. The star sprinter Matthew Glaetzer was missing because of a recent injury, while the reigning team sprint world champions Steph Morton and Kaarle McCulloch were not at full health. With the emphasis on Tokyo, the sprint squad trained through the track world championships – remaining in the gym (on reduced loads) in Berlin.
The endurance squad have also endured a turbulent lead-in to the competition. Tim Decker, the head coach, was out of action until recently after a crash necessitated brain surgery, in an incident which rocked the close-knit group. A key member of the men’s team pursuit squad, Kelland O’Brien, did not travel; he is still recovering from a fall at the Tour Down Under. “We have had a pretty shit few months,” said Jones.
The team are not looking for excuses. “We are not sharing this stuff for the sympathy vote,” said Morton. “We want to inspire people: if you get knocked down 10 times, you stand up 11. We might not have defended our world title, but what we managed to achieve by being here is actually far greater.” Yet Morton and her colleagues know the team have work to do. “We’ve got ground to make up,” the veteran Leigh Howard said.
Australia’s riders and coaches will now take a short break, before returning to their high-performance headquarters. In Adelaide, collective focus will revert to the number one goal: Olympic success. On the evidence of Berlin, that will require some tweaks to the strategy.
“We need time to digest – we cannot jump to conclusions,” Jones said. “But it is obvious that things need to change. Worrying is not going to help, but we need to ask questions and have conversations we would not have otherwise had.”
After neither of his team pursuit squads won a medal – for the first time in history (bar 2018, when they did not race) – Decker will be going back to the drawing board. “It is a good reality check of where we are at,” the coach said. “It is not that we need to make massive changes, but we need to become hunters, really focus in on the Olympic games, and accept that the standards have stepped up.”
Decker’s men rode their targeted time during qualification – not far from the world record they held. The only issue: Denmark smashed the world record in qualification, again in the first round and again in the gold medal ride. The Australians were lapped by Italy in the bronze medal ride, ultimately finishing fourth.
If Australia excel in Tokyo, this past week at the world championships will be swiftly forgotten. Hindsight is helpful like that – as the Americans say, anyone can be a Monday morning quarterback. In the moment, with this competition a mere stepping stone for Tokyo 2020, it is hard to accurately assess the merits of Australia’s performance.
Should the medals rain down in Japan, disappointment in Berlin might be remembered as the necessary tonic, spurring these riders onwards. Failure, even five months out from an Olympics, can be hugely helpful. “We know the long game is Tokyo,” said Morton. “You learn more from a loss. When you win, you can’t see where you are vulnerable. We have had our shortcomings exposed – now I know what I need to work on towards the Olympics.”
On the other hand, if Tokyo is a repeat of these world championships, Cycling Australia will have much soul-searching to do. Following a disappointing 2016 Olympics, where the team collected just two medals (neither gold), the governing body headhunted Simon Jones from Team Sky to lead a turnaround. It appeared he had done just that: until recently Australian track cycling was ascendant, winning six world titles 12 months ago. But Jones and his riders will be judged on Tokyo 2020, not the successes of 2019 (nor this world championships).
Following their team meeting, the whole Australian cycling team have had their homework assigned. In exactly five months, they will put it into practice on the Izu Velodrome south of Tokyo. Only then will we be able to properly judge their performances in Berlin.
