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Bobridge vows to beat British in 2012

 

Bobridge vows to beat British in 2012

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Bobridge vows to beat British in 2012

New world champion Jack Bobridge has vowed to help Australia knock the mighty British track cycling team off their perch at London 2012.

New world champion Jack Bobridge has vowed to help Australia knock the mighty British track cycling team off their perch at London 2012.

Bobridge, who won the under-23 men's time trial at the world road race championships in Switzerland on Wednesday, believes Australia can regain the dominance they held over the track events at the 2004 Olympics.

"The GB team has upset the track hierarchy for the past couple of years but the support we're getting now is going to help bring us back on top," Bobridge said.

"Give us three years and we'll be back to show that we're the best trackies in the world."

Bobridge recently signed a two-year deal with professional road team Garmin and said the US-based ProTour team's readiness to support his track ambitions with Australia was paramount to his decision.

The 20-year-old was part of the team that helped Australia to the bronze medal race-off in the team pursuit at last year's Olympic Games in Beijing.

Apart from losing that match to New Zealand, it was Britain's haul of seven gold medals from a total of 10 on offer that left the Australians hurting most.

Bobridge added the national under-23 road and time trial titles to his Australian individual pursuit crown this year.

He went one better than his individual pursuit silver medal, won on the track in March, when he covered the 33.2-kilometre road time trial course in 40 minutes 44.79 seconds, more than 18 seconds faster than silver medallist Nelson Oliveira of Portugal.

But the South Australian said the track events at the 2012 Games remained a "big goal".

His next assignment, however, will be trying to help Australia's under-23 men's road race team to a world title on Saturday.

They will be looking to see off coach Brian Stephens with another win before the national under-23 coach leaves his Italian base to continue working with the sport in Australia from next year.

"In the back of my head I wanted to top off a win for Brino," said Bobridge after his time trial victory.

"To pull off a win for him in his last year, he's pretty wrapped.

"If we can get another result it would be great and we have the squad to do it."

The road world championships continue until Sunday. In the women's open time trial American Kristin Armstrong retained her title with Australian Alexis Rhodes 13th.

AAP

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