Australia will be stepping into the UCI Gravel World Championships in Belgium with a women's squad that boasts a strong mix of proven gravel talent and road crossover riders, including debuting Australian champion Courtney Sherwell, Giro d'Italia stage winner Neve Bradbury and proven player Tiffany Cromwell.
The men's team will include the experience of Cyclingnews columnist Nathan Haas, last year's Australian gravel champion Connor Sens, Freddy Ovett and Oliver Stenning among a squad of nine that will take on the 181km men's race from Halle to Leuven on Sunday October 6. Completing the squad are Laurens Black, Tom Chester, Kobe Henderson, Matthew Shepherd and Ben Spenceley. Brendan Johnston, who was automatically selected as national champion, opted not to compete.
Selections for the elite men's team were dominated by those who gathered qualification through the UCI Gravel World Series but for the women's elite team, it was a combination of series qualification and wild card entries from the national federation, AusCycling. It is a combination that should deliver a powerful squad for the 134km event on Saturday October 5.
Cromwell won the European Championships last year, which was run in the same region and terrain as this year's World Championship race, and has finished in the top ten of the last two editions of the race for the rainbow jersey. It's bound to help that this year she is also racing alongside her Canyon-SRAM teammate Bradbury, who made her strength clear when she stepped up to the top step of the podium on the brutal Blockhaus stage of the Giro this year.
Bradbury is lining up for Australia at the Road World Championships this weekend too, as is another of her soon-to-be gravel teammates, Sarah Gigante (AG Insurance-Soudal). Both gained entry through a wildcard while the remainder of the team gained series qualification and, in Sherwell's case automatic qualification as national gravel champion as well.
Sherwell is the most off-road focussed of the squad with the rider who last weekend represented her nation at the Marathon Mountain Bike World Championships also having swept up a number of key gravel victories at home as well as clutching two runner-up spots in the Belgian Waffle Ride series in the US at the start of this year.
The 2022 Australian road champion, Nicole Frain, is another strong addition as she has been making a considerable mark in gravel this year, alongside racing for Hess on the road. Frain took second place at both the Houffa and the Gralloch events, therefore qualifying through the UCI series as did the final member of the women's squad, Brianna Samuhel.
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