‘Old dog’ sprinters ready to unleash on the track
These old dogs don’t need new tricks.
Team sprint track cyclists Ethan Mitchell, Sam Webster and Eddie Dawkins went through a lengthy debrief after their UCI Track Cycling World Championships failure in late February, but have come away with renewed hunger to put right those wrongs at the Commonwealth Games.
‘‘We’ve got a lot of motivation out of that. For us, we didn’t perform the way we wanted to perform,’’ Mitchell said yesterday.
‘‘Execution-wise it wasn’t there. Here, we’ve put a lot of focus on how we ride the track. Luckily for us, it’s similar to [our home track in] Cambridge, which is nice. To go out there and hone in on that technical stuff, if we do that I think we’ll be capable of a really good performance.’’
Failure might have been too strong a word to describe their world championships effort.
They were fifth fastest in qualifying, before losing to Great Britain in their heat to finish out of the medals. They have set a very high bar over the last four years, which includes three world championship golds, a Commonwealth Games gold from Glasgow in 2014 and an Olympic silver from Rio in 2016.
‘‘It looks cruel sometimes on the results sheet with the placings, but it can be under two-tenths of a second,’’ Mitchell said.
The team have setup a mini Athletes’ Village in a hotel in Brisbane, about an hour north of the main Games hub, but not far from the Anna Meares Velodrome where they will be competing.
Mitchell said it was a touch bittersweet not to be in the village.
It was then he realised just how much older and battle-hardened he and his team sprint team-mates are. Mitchell is 27, Dawkins 28 and Webster 26. They represent half of the six cyclists over 24 in the 20-strong track team, with nine athletes 20 or under.
‘‘We’re actually the old dogs, the sprint team,’’ Mitchell said with a laugh.
‘‘We’ve got a whole bunch of young endurance riders around us and it’s special to see.
‘‘We went into the village the other day and we’ve got a couple of guys who it is their first Games - to see their reactions you forget how special that environment is and you almost can take it for granted.’’
The men’s sprint team will get the chance to set the tone for the rest of the squad when they take the track tomorrow, the first day of competition at the Games.
Their biggest challenges will come from Australia, who skipped the world champs to focus on their home Games, and England, who have two-thirds of the Great Britain team which beat New Zealand at the world champs.
Mitchell was expecting quick times at the velodrome, with temperatures already at 31 degrees Celsius during training.
‘‘It’s a really, really quick track, and I think there are going to be some very fast times.’’