WAIS Cyclists Win World Championship Gold in Apeldoorn

Australia’s cyclists have capped off a phenomenal week of success with two more WAIS-AIS athletes adding their names to the Australian World Champion list from the 2011 UCI Track World Championships in Apeldoorn, The Netherlands.

The Cyclones stormed to a record result of eight gold, two silver and one bronze medal with Michael Freiberg taking gold in the multi event Omnium while defending champions Cameron Meyer (WAIS-AIS) and Leigh Howard overcame their ‘marked men’ status to take their second straight Madison crown.

The Cyclones won eight of the 19 gold medals on offer including six of the ten Olympic events contested at the championships. In two other events, the women’s teams pursuit and the men’s team sprint, the Australians were just outside the medals in fourth place. France was the next best performed nation with two gold (both in Olympic events) one silver and two bronze while Belarus claimed gold in two non Olympic events to sit third on the medal table. Great Britain scored the second highest number of medals with nine made up of gold in an Olympic event, three silver and five bronze medals.

It was a case of Australia against a combined rest of the world when Meyer and Howard lined up to defend their 2010 Madison crown. The pair went in as unbackable favourites and they had to work on every one of the 160 laps of the 40km event. They tried several times to breakaway only to be reeled in as their rivals joined forces to stymie their attacks.

In the meantime Czech riders Martin Blaha and Jiri Hochmann took advantage of the situation to steal a lap on the field and take the lead.

As the race headed into the final ten kilometres the Australian pair only two points and were well down the rankings but they timed their winning attack to perfection leaving the rest of the field to mount a futile chase. On the way to gaining the lap they also collected five points for an intermediate sprint win to put them on eight points and on top of the standings. For the remainder of the race they made sure they marked every move and secured a well deserved win.

“I don’t think they like us very much,” joked Meyer after the race. “We were very motivated out there. I think you could see in the last 60 laps we were never going to die until the death.

“Leigh and I knew that coming into today if we won the world title it would take our (Cyclones) total to seven and that would make us the most successful (team) ever,” said Meyer who had opted out of the teams pursuit to concentrate on his defence of the points race, in which he placed second, and Madison titles.

“There was a bit of pressure on us, we had not won a world title (here). We have both won world titles the past two years.”

Howard had narrowly missed the final cut for the triumphant teams pursuit quartet and didn’t want to miss out on a world champion’s rainbow jersey.

“It was very difficult,” said Howard. “We had to wait and wait until the rest were really tired because we knew everyone was going to follow us. We did that tactic really well.”

The Czech team placed second on one point and hometown favourites Theo Bos and Peter Schep won the final sprint to claim the bronze medal with 21 points but were a lap down on the top two teams.

Earlier in the championships:

As Australian gold medals rained down around him 20 year old West Australian Michael Freiberg lined up for the final race of the omnium competition. Freiberg, who this season placed fifth at the Beijing and Manchester World Cup rounds, went into the six race event as an outside medal chance but found himself leading on points going into the kilometre time trial to decide the medals.

He had begun his Omnium campaign yesterday with 12th place in the flying 250m lap before placing fifth in both the points and elimination races. Today he was fifth in the individual pursuit and first in the scratch race

His main challenger for gold was New Zealand’s Shane Archbold who set the fastest time, a sizzling 1:03.879, to move to the top of the rankings with only Freiberg and Spaniard Eloy Teruel Rovira left to race. Freiberg knew he needed to finish at least four places ahead of Rovira and no more than eight behind Archbold to win the gold medal. He started slowly and at the 500m mark was 13th fastest and under pressure. But he dug deep and as Rovira faded, Freiberg fired grimacing in pain and wobbling over the final fifty metres to cross the line with the sixth fastest kilometre (1:04:729).

“I had to go out there with everything I had got and going those last fewlaps, I was not seeing much,” said an elated Freiberg who won the gold with a total points tally of 34, four clear of silver medallist Archbold on 38 points. Belgian Gijs Van Hoecke was third with 41 points.

“First Anna, then Shane and now this,” said Freiberg whose Mum and sister were on hand to witness his win. “For them to come over it just gave me the lift that I needed to make it in the end. This is a really great day for me. Six months ago I could never have imagined myself here.

“The flying start (lap) is not my favourite event but we managed to limit the losses and from then on and things started to get better. I wanted to do well but to come away with a win in the world championships in such an incredible field so close to the Olympics is unbelievable.

It was a significant performance under pressure by the young debutant who last year earned selection in the Commonwealth Games team and claimed silver in the scratch race.

“I have always just missed out on the national level teams. I have been around the mark but the teams pursuit has been one of the world class teams and to crack into thatyou have to be one of the fastest in the world.

“There is such a competitive attitude in the team. Every training ride on the road we are fighting for the best and it is always a competition I have not let that get to me. Luckily for me, this position came up and I was able to seize the opportunity and I love this event now.

In the men’s points race, WAIS athlete Cameron Meyer was unable to win a third straight title after being closed marked by the rest of the field.

While the majority of the world class field waited for Meyer to move Colombian Avila Edwin Alcibiades stole the march with an early attack to be the only rider to collect 20 points for lapping the field. He also collected 13 sprint points to finish with 33 points, eight ahead of Meyer who won three of the 16 sprints contested and collected points in five more. Third place went to French rider Morgan Kneisky with 23 points.

“I was a little bit heavily marked,” said Meyer with a wry smile. “And it’s definitely not the result I was looking for because I wanted that third gold medal but at the end of the day I had to ride the race to those tactics.

“The Colombian took a lap quick and before you know it he’s 20 points up on you but full credit to him, he made the right move and at the end of the day he shut me down to make sure he had the gold medal and I could only manage the silver.

“I didn’t have the legs to take the lap and break the field when I needed to,” said Meyer. “I rode the best race I could on the night and maybe next year I can claim it back in Melbourne in front of a home crowd.”

Meyer, who was a member of the Australian teams pursuit quartet that won gold last year, opted not to contest the team event this year in order to concentrate on defending his points race title and the Madison which he’ll race on Sunday with team mate Leigh Howard. He also lined up in the scratch race on the opening day of competition where again he was heavily marked by his rivals.

– Cycling Australia