Fallen Australia plot revival
MELBOURNE: Australia’s hopes of battling Britain for Olympic cycling supremacy were smashed at the Rio velodrome last year but the nation’s new high performance director sees a golden future ahead for the fallen superpower.
In Simon Jones, Australia have an insider and an architect of British cycling success, the Somerset man having guided Team GB riders to medals at the 2000 and 2004 Olympics, and helped Team Sky dominate professional cycling in a three-year stint as head of performance and innovation.
Australia will hope Jones can quickly bridge the gap with Britain at the Olympics, while avoiding the scandals and collateral damage that have accompanied their rivals’ relentless pursuit of success.
Only two months into the role, Jones has already made his presence felt, firing veteran women’s endurance coach Gary Sutton and announcing a replacement for track sprint coach Gary West.
New endurance coach Jason Bartram and sprint coach Nick Flyger are both qualified sports scientists, a pointer to Jones’s more numbers-oriented approach.
More tough decisions loom for a programme that yielded only one track silver and a bronze from all cycling events at the Rio Games, after winning six medals at the 2012 London Games.
“I want to be successful, measured by gold medal outcomes at the Olympic Games,” Jones said in an interview. “We have to make challenging decisions along the way.
“Tradition is one thing but the future is more about a more systematic and planned performance-based approach. And that’s all part of the decisionmaking approach in where you intend to invest. Otherwise, it’s all quite a gamble.” Reuters