CYCLING: Australia's pursuit for gold at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games on track with Alexander Edmondson (SA), Jack Bobridge (SA), Sam Welsford (WA) and Daniel Fitter (QLD) teaming to unofficially break the team pursuit world record in Mexico on Sunday afternoon.
The quartet posted a time of 3mins 50.360secs at the Cycling Australia High Performance Unit Men's Track Endurance training camp at the Aguascalientes Velodrome in Mexico.
The time unofficially bettered Great Britain's mark of 3mins 51.659secs set at the 2012 London Olympic Games, however with the costs associated for official UCI ratification of a world record attempt being prohibitive, the time will not be recognised as the new world mark.
“By no means does what has happened today mean that’s an Olympic team, there is a long way to go,” Men's Track Endurance Coach Tim Decker explained. “We’re about 389 days from race day in Rio so it is an indicator that we are on track, but we still have a lot of work to do."
In June 2015, Welsford and Fitter, plus (WA), Callum Scotson (SA), Alex Porter (SA) embarked on a European training and racing trip.
Based in Belgium, the quartet - who teamed to win the junior team pursuit world title at the 2014 UCI Junior Track World Championships in Korea last August - contested a number of criteriums and track events in both Belgium and the Netherlands.
Last week they met up with Jayco-AIS World Tour Academy team member and two-time team pursuit world champion Edmondson, plus Budget-Forklifts' Bobridge (SA) and dual team pursuit world champion Glenn O'Shea (SA) for the extended three-week training camp based in Mexico.
"Originally we were going to do a training camp in Europe but when Budget-Forklifts got a start in the Tour of Utah we looked at wanting to do the camp at altitude," Decker explained.
“So we came here and had plans for what we wanted to get out of it, and one of those was towards the end to simulate two team pursuits like we were in qualifying and a final of a major meet.
“This was a good way to end our three week camp. I’m very proud of the boys, there are only a handful of riders here and some with a lot of experience, some limited, so to come together like that is a bonus."
Cycling Australia
