Spots on the Australian team,which features Tour de France stage winner Michael Matthews and Giro D’Italia winner Jai Hindley as the men’s headliners and a women’s squad spearheaded by Georgia Baker and Grace Brown,were highly sought after and most Australian riders put their hands up.
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The high quality of the riders who missed the cut is even a good pointer to the strong hopes of Australian champion emerging from the first world road championships in Australia since Geelong in 2010.
Sprint ace Caleb Ewan said he was “heartbroken” to have missed selection,capping a and misfortune in the Giro D’Italia and Tour de France.
Caleb Ewan is heartbroken to have missed the Australian team.LaPresse
Ewan,who hails from nearby Moss Vale and grew up riding around Wollongong,had targeted the home world titles for years and was even considered talented enough to contend for the 266.9km event.
But the eleven-time Grand Tour stage winner was missing from the men’s list named on Friday:Hindley,Matthews,Luke Plapp,Ben O’Connor,Simon Clarke,Luke Durbridge,Heinrich Haussler and Nick Schultz. Rohan Dennis was unavailable for family reasons.
After a stage victory in the Deutschland Tour,Ewan posted on social media he was “heartbroken I won’t be there to represent my country and that I believe I deserved to be there.”
Explaining the selections for the September 24 (women’s) and 25 (men’s) races,AusCycling Elite Road co-ordinator Rory Sutherland said the nature of the Wollongong course,which contains 3945m of total elevation,had been the biggest factor in picking a team. The amount of climbing involved meant it was not,as first expected,a tailor-made race for sprinters.
“It’s a tricky one. When we heard Wollongong worlds,we thought we were probably going to see a very sprinter-friendly race,” Sutherland said.
Michael Matthews celebrates after winning stage 14 of the Tour de France in July.AP
“When the course was finally released,it is a very demanding course. The more we send people in Australia to ride it,athletes to ride it and to check it out ... if we speak specifically to the men’s elite road race,there’s 4000m of climbing on city circuits,it’s hard. At the end of the day,we need to make a decision based on the course itself. None of these are simple decisions.”
The versatile Matthews,a former under 23 road race world champion and 2015 elite silver medallist,shapes as Australia’s big hope. He is a high-calibre sprinter who won the 2017 Tour de France green jersey,but also of the Tour de France this year,finishing with a climb.
Asked about Ewan,Sutherland said:“Caleb has had a pretty rough year. You have to look at the performances of the athletes and look at the course specifically,and look at how many metres of climbing are in it.
“A fairytale for a lot of people would be that Caleb Ewan would be able to race but we all have to agree you have to be on a certain level to be able to get to that point,so you can be in the pointy end of the race and be effective there as well.”
Georgia Baker celebrates after claiming the gold medal in the Commonwealth Games road race.Getty
Ewan wasn’t the only rider with local knowledge omitted,with Rachel Neylan also overlooked.
“It’s important to note we don’t make selections of athletes[because] they’re from the area. It shouldn’t be part of the process. You take athletes based on merit,” Sutherland said.
The women’s squad contains numerous contenders for the road race and time trial titles,said Jesse Korf,AusCycling’s Executive General Manager of Performance.
The women’s road race squad has the same core as the team who,with Baker,bronze medallist Sarah Roy,former track star Alex Manly and Brodie Chapman all suiting up again. Grace Brown,who won the individual time trial gold at the Commonwealth Games gold,is also in outstanding form.
The Australian women’s road race team in Birmingham.Getty
“We have numerous females who can contest the hilly course,inclusive of a sprint finish. And we also have exciting prospects in the time trial and the team time trial,” Korf said.
Sutherland is confident Australia’s elite teams have the spread of talent to produce a world champion on home soil,but with uncertainty about how the world’s best riders will attack the tricky course,it all remains to be seen.
“Can we have a world champion,in Australia on Australian soil? We’d all sit here and say that would be an absolute dream come true,but the racing will decide a lot of that,” he said.
The UCI Road World Championships will see more than 1,000 of the world’s top cyclists from more than 70 nations racing in Wollongong,in 11 races over eight days.
of the 2022 UCI Road World Championships begins on Sunday 18 September 2022 with every race streaming ad-free,live and on-demand.