Australia has its set sights on the Rio 2016 Olympic Games after finishing third on the medal tally at the 2016 UCI Track World Championships.
TRACK CYCLING: Australia has its set sights on the Rio 2016 Olympic Games after finishing third on the medal tally at the 2016 UCI Track World Championships.
Australia collected five medals overall, including two world titles in the men's team pursuit and women's individual pursuit. Matthew Glaetzer surged to win his maiden individual medal with sprint silver, Anna Meares won silver in the women's keirin while Glenn O'Shea collected bronze in the omnium.
With 150 days until the Games, National Performance Director Kevin Tabotta believes the team is well positioned after finishing inside the top five in nine of ten Olympic events.
"I'm encouraged by the overall performance of the team" said Tabotta. "I think we came here looking to improve our performances across a number of the different disciplines in the events.
"There's no question we've got some work we need to put in place between now and race day, but what's really encouraging is we're in those fourth and fifth places, those hundredths and thousandths of a second difference between medals and not having medals."
Of the ten Olympic events, Australia collected four medals including gold, two silver and a bronze.
Four top five placings were also secured with the men's team sprint just one milli-second off contesting the medal rounds in fourth, while the women's team sprint finished only six-hundredths of a second off the bronze medal. The women's team pursuit finished in fifth place following an interrupted preparation, while Annette Edmondson courageously grabbed fifth in the omnium just two weeks after being hit by a car.
"We're in a really, really good position. We know our plan between now and Rio and we also don't have to worry about qualifying for the Olympics, we don't have to worry about peaking for events in between, we don't have to worry about traveling to far flung places to deliver performances," Tabotta added.
"Given the circumstances there's a lot of up. I'm confident we can convert those fourth and fifth places into medals by Rio."
CYCLING AUSTRALIA
