A legend in their corner

Meares happy to help new generation of cyclists

ANNA Meares will keep her distance from her former teammates on the Gold Coast this week as Cycling Australia sends its first team to a major Games without her since 2000.

The two-time Olympic gold medallist has competed at every Commonwealth and Olympic Games since Manchester in 2002 and retired after the Rio Olympics in 2016.

She will be at the Games as an ambassador and has the velodrome in Brisbane named after her, but the 34-year-old said she wouldn’t be in the Aussie pits during the racing.

“I’ll go and say hello but I don’t feel it’s my place anymore, there’s a new team dynamic, a new team network and they’ve got new people in it and are functioning very successfully within it,” Meares said.

“I am proud that I was a part of that and moved the culture and team dynamics forward and it’s their job now to do their thing.

“I get invited (to training) every now and then, which is nice, but at the moment for me it’s good to let them do their own thing.”

Meares admitted she was tempted to ride on to the Gold Coast Games and retire on home soil but her ailing back wouldn’t allow it.

“I would have really liked to have gone on to Gold Coast and ridden there on that track at home where I grew up and it all started,” she said.

“And I had everything in front of me for that possible fairytale finish but it just didn’t quite happen for me with injuries and that sort of stuff. I had to call my time after Rio.”

The former sprint queen has thrown her support behind Australia’s new guard of Stephanie Morton and Kaarle McCulloch, who will be hard to beat this week and are medal hopes for Tokyo in 2020.

“I think in Steph you’ve got one of the biggest engines in the world and she’s still honing her tactical skills … she still has so much room for improvement,” Meares said.