Glenn's Story
Growing up in Bendigo, Glenn O'Shea began cycling when he was eight and steadily worked through the ranks to eventually become Junior World Champion as a part of the team pursuit in 2007.
O’Shea lined up alongside Rohan Dennis, Jack Bobridge and Michael Hepburn in the teams pursuit. The quartet qualified second fastest for the first round before knocking off the New Zealand team to set up a dream final with the British. O’Shea and his team could not match it however with the home team as the British again broke their own world record with a time of 3:51.659 with the Australians posting a 3:54.581 to go home with the silver medal.
At the 2012 World Championships in Melbourne he announced himself as the man to beat at the London Olympics in the debut of the omnium event when he won the world title. O'Shea showed that consistency is needed across the six discipline event as, although he did not win an individual race, he never finished lower than 6th to be crowned World Champion.
Looking to confirm his position as the world’s best in the omnium, O’Shea kicked off the event at London 2012 finishing third in the 250m flying lap. He did not have his best 30km points race, finishing in 8th, before backing up with two more 3rd place finishes in the elimination race and the 4km individual pursuit to put himself at the top of the standings with two legs to go.
O’Shea then fell to 6th after finishing 14th in the 15km scratch race and despite again claiming a 3rd place finish, this time in the 1km time trial, he could not make up the gap leaving him in 5th place. He finished on 34 points (the lowest total winning), 7 points off Danish gold medallist Lasse Hansen and just 4 points off the bronze medal.
