It is a race of extreme endurance, across 4,000 painful metres. It is a race where man and machine combine – with the aerodynamic benefits of equipment as closely scrutinised as individual training plans. It is a race where seconds are measured to the third decimal, to the single millisecond. And it is the race where, at long last, Australia are Olympic champions.
By the admission of their own coach, the Australian men’s team pursuit squad arrived in Paris as underdogs. The nation’s track cyclists have endured a turbulent two Olympic cycles, epitomised in Tokyo by the moment Alex Porter’s handlebar snapped midway through qualifying in a freak accident. The team recovered to win the bronze medal – Australia’s only medal on the track at the last Games – but the symbolism remained.
On Tuesday, it took only three minutes, 40 seconds and 73 milliseconds to rewrite that narrative and emphatically remove any underdog tag. The Australian squad of Sam Welsford, Conor Leahy, Kelland O’Brien and Oliver Bleddyn broke – no, smashed – Italy’s world record from Tokyo. It suddenly made them favourites ahead of a gold medal ride against Great Britain.
It was to be a duel steeped in track history. Australia have not won the men’s team pursuit since the 2004 Olympics in Athens, where an squad that would go on to become cycling greats – Graeme Brown, Brett Lancaster, Brad McGee and Luke Roberts – beat Team GB and a young Bradley Wiggins, in 3:58.233.
Then the drought began. Four years later in Beijing, Australia raced for bronze – and lost. At London 2012, it was an Athens rematch: Great Britain against the Australians. But this time Team GB broke the world record on their way to win gold. It was déjà vu at Rio 2016: another golden world record for Britain and another silver medal for Australia.
In the two decades since 2004, the nations have met in six world championship finals. The Australians have won five. But when it mattered most, on the grand Olympic stage, Britain came out on top. Australia has also failed to reach a team pursuit final since their last world title in 2019.
And so the track was set on Wednesday – history, narrative, sporting rivalry. “The Aussies know how to race,” cyclist Aaron Gate offered after New Zealand’s preceding placing race. And so it proved.
As both nations began flying, the splits were infinitesimally small. Over the first kilometre, the lead swung back and forth. After a quarter of the race, the British led by seven milliseconds – all of 0.007. Australia took the lead soon thereafter, but the British did not back down. At the two and three kilometre marks, the teams were barely separated by more than one-tenth of a second. The Australians were ahead but with such small margins it was impossible to predict a winner. It shaped up as the closest Olympic team pursuit race in history.
Then disaster hit the British. With one lap to go and a deficit of 0.160 seconds to make up, Britain’s Ethan Hayter slipped off his saddle. It was unclear whether it was a technical issue or a rider error. Either way, the error would prevent any chance of a British resurgence. Australia finished in 3:42.067, almost on par with Italy’s prior world record, but not quite a new best-mark – nor the sub-3.40 mark that suddenly seems in reach.
The emotion on the face of the riders said it all – this is a victory the Australian track cycling team has targeted for so long, yet all too often had come up short. It was particularly special for Sam Welsford, who won silver in Rio in the loss to Britain, and then bronze in Tokyo. The 28-year-old rounds out his collection with the shiniest medal of all.
Victory in the men’s team pursuit on Wednesday is Australia’s first track cycling gold since 2012, when Anna Meares famously beat Britain’s Victoria Pendleton in the sprint. It has been an unexpectedly long time between appearances on the podium’s top step for Australia, an erstwhile track cycling heavyweight which has struggled to fire in recent years.
That will make the victory all the more special for Australia’s endurance quartet and their coach, Tim Decker. Stood in the infield as the group prepared to battle for gold, the riders embraced as Decker offered some final words of wisdom. The next time they embraced, the Australians would be Olympic champions.
Afterwards, O’Brien seemed lost for words. “I think it is a fair way from sinking in,” he said. Welsford, with a nod to history, was happy to let the victory wash over him. “It has been 20 years since Australia won this,” he added. “So that will sink in [over] the next week.”
