Cycling

Australia and Olympic Cycling

Australia has a long and proud tradition in Olympic cycling. In terms of medals won per events contested, cycling is easily one of the most successful Olympic sports for Australia.

Edgar “Dunc” Gray became Australia’s first cycling medallist in 1928.

Gray finished third in the 1000 metres time trial in Amsterdam, and then won gold an Olympiad later in Los Angeles.

In Helsinki 1952 Russell Mockridge won gold in the time trial and then joined with Lionel Cox to finish first in the tandem. Mockridge, who later died in a road racing accident, is still arguably Australia’s greatest all-round cyclist. Ian Browne and Tony Marchant repeated the win in the tandem in Melbourne 1956.

Australian cyclists won three silver medals in Munich 1972 before again claiming gold in Los Angeles 1984. Michael Turtur, Kevin Nichols, Dean Woods and Michael Grenda overcame the home support and superior racing bikes of the Americans to win the team pursuit in Los Angeles.

Woods again made the podium four years later in Seoul placing second in the individual pursuit and winning bronze as a member of the team pursuit. Also in 1988, Martin Vinnicombe won silver in the 1000m time trial.

The first Australian to win an Olympic gold medal on the road was Kathy Watt in Barcelona 1992.

Watt also won a silver medal in the individual pursuit making her the first Australian to win two individual cycling medals at the same Olympics.

Australia’s next cycling gold medal came in the madison at Sydney 2000 when Brett Aitken and Scott McGrory combined for an emotion-charged victory.

Athens 2004 saw a “gold-rush” for Australia with a record six gold medals.

Ryan Bayley became the first Australian to win two individual cycling gold medals and he did it at the same Olympics, winning both the men’s sprint and the keirin.

Anna Meares won her first gold medal with a world record time in the 500m time trial and Sarah Carrigan emulated Kathy Watt’s win in the women’s road race.

Stuart O’Grady and Graeme Brown won gold in the madison, and Brown won another gold medal in the team pursuit with Peter Dawson, Brett Lancaster, Luke Roberts, Stephen Wooldridge and Bradley McGee. McGee has now won the most Olympic cycling medals for Australia with one gold medal, one silver and three bronze medals.

Although Australia went into Beijing 2008 with high medal hopes, the Beijing track delivered a number of near misses.

Nonetheless, the heroic performance of Meares was one of the most inspiring performances in Australian Olympic history.

Meares suffered a broken neck in a race crash just seven months before the Games but trained tenaciously to get back on the bike for Beijing.

She completed one of the greatest comebacks in living memory to claim silver behind British cyclist Victoria Pendleton in the Sprint.

Four years on and with the home town crowd cheering Pendleton home, Meares pulled off an amazing victory to claim gold in the women’s sprint at the London 2012 Games having already won bronze in the team sprint with teammate Kaarle McCulloch. In doing so Meares became the first female cyclist from any country to win five Olympic track medals and the first to win a medal at three Games.

The Australian team pursuit quartet of Glenn O’Shea, Jack Bobridge, Rohan Dennis and Michael Hepburn won Australia’s only silver on the track behind a British team that broke the world record in the final. Shane Perkins claimed bronze in the men’s sprint while Olympic debutant Annette Edmondson also finished with bronze in omnium event's Games debut.

Sam Willoughby won Australia’s first BMX medal since the sport’s inception in 2008 after finishing second behind Beijing gold medallist Maris Strombergs of Latvia in the London final. Teammate Caroline Buchanan placed fifth in the final of the women’s event.

Six-time Olympian Stuart O’Grady rode a tactical men’s road race to finish sixth while Michael Rogers matched that result in the men’s time trial. On debut Shara Gillow finished the women’s time trial in 13th while also claiming the best result in the women’s road race coming in 38th.

In a heartbreaking turn of events former world champion, Willoughby, suffered a career-ending spinal injury in 2016, just one month after Rio 2016 where he finished sixth.

Australia is yet to win an Olympic medal in the mountain bike event.

At Tokyo 2020 Australia participated in all five cycling disciplines, including BMX freestyle which made its Games debut. Logan Martin won the men's park event in the BMX freestyle competition, while Natalya Diehm was fifth in the women’s event. Martin, the 2021 world champion, won gold with his first run in the final.

In BMX racing three-time Olympian Lauren Reynolds placed 5th in the women's event, to equal the best performance in Australian Olympic history.

In the Mountain Bike cross-country event, four-time Olympian Daniel McConnell and three-time Olympian Rebecca Henderson finished in the top-30.

Tokyo 2020 was a challenging campaign for the 15-member track cycling squad. Australia's sole medal was bronze in the men's Team Pursuit, comprising Kelland O'Brien, Sam Welsford, Leigh Howard, Luke Plapp and Alexander Porter. They comfortably won the bronze medal race against New Zealand, overtaking them.

Australia’s nine-member Road Cycling team in Tokyo won their first medal in 13 years, when Rohan Dennis claimed bronze in the men's Individual Time Trial. It was Australia's second medal in our Olympic history in the event.

In the women's Individual Time Trial, Grace Brown missed the podium by just seven seconds, to place 4th in the event over 22.1km. It was the best Australian result in the Individual Time Trial since the 2000 Olympics.

Olympic History

Cycling events have been present at every staging of the Modern Olympics since Athens 1896.

Women’s cycling was introduced in Los Angeles 1984 and mountain bike made its Olympic debut at Atlanta 1996. With the advent of professional cyclists in Atlanta, Olympic cycling grew in popularity.

It didn’t take long for the professionals to make an impact at the Olympics with Miguel Indurain of Spain winning the road time trial in Atlanta 1996 and German Jan Ullrich winning the road race and finishing second, one place ahead of American Lance Armstrong, in the road time trial in Sydney 2000.

The traditional gender inequality of cycling was smashed with drastic changes to the London 2012 Olympic program.

In Beijing there were only 35 female track cycling competitors, but in London, it rose to 84.

The IOC removed the individual pursuit, points race and men’s madison events to make way for three new women’s events. This evened the ledger with five events for both men and women: sprint, team sprint, keirin, team pursuit and omnium.

Omnium sees six disciplines collide in an event attractive to endurance riders. The innovative omnium reflects the latest IOC trend of adopting engaging events. The discipline of BMX was added to the cycling program for Beijing 2008, replacing individual time trials on the velodrome.

Sport Format

There are five cycling disciplines - BMX freestyle, BMX racing, mountain bike, road and track.

BMX Freestyle & Racing

There are three BMX (Bicycle Moto Cross) events on the Olympic program - Elite Men (19 years and older) and Elite Women (19 years and older) and BMX Freestyle (Park).

Elite BMX races are held on short outdoor tracks that include jumps, bumps and tight banked corners. Eight riders compete in each heat, with the top four qualifying for the next round. Races take about 40 seconds.

BMX freestyle (park) made its Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020. Riders execute tricks on obstacles such as walls, box jumps and spines. They are given 60 seconds to perform acrobatics tricks and skills, with tricks scored on multiple aspects including difficulty, originality, execution, height and creativity.

Mountain Bike

Mountain bike competitors complete laps of an undulating race circuit designed to produce a specific winning time rather than a specific distance. Races are over 40-50km for men, and 30-40km for women. The riders start together and must complete a set number of laps of the course. The winner is the first past the finish line.

The number of laps depends on the track and weather conditions and a decision on the number of laps can be made by organisers at the latest two hours before the start of the race to determine the optimum finish time:

              Minimum      Optimum      Maximum
Men          2h:00             2h:15              2h:30
Women    1h:45             2h:00              2h:15

Men and women compete separately and riders are seeded on a starting grid according to their current world ranking.

Road

The road competition consists of the road race and individual time trial for both men and women. The road race is a mass start event and the first cyclist to cross the finish line at the end of the total distance is declared the winner. The men’s race is approximately 230km and the women’s, approximately 120km.

The Time Trial is a race against the clock over a shorter distance. For the individual time trial, men cover approximately 48km and women cover about 24km. Cyclists start at 90 second intervals and race against the clock. The cyclist with the fastest time is declared the winner.

Track

Sprint 
The sprint is a classic short distance event in which two or more riders cover three laps. Only the final 200 metres is timed. The special requirements in the sprint are strength and speed. The key is tactics. Sudden and dramatic changes in speed, standstill attempts, and feints are typical ways to surprise an opponent. Riders obtain a seeding through the qualifying 200 metre flying time trial with 18 men and 12 women qualifying for the first round.  From quarter final stage onwards rivals match up in best of three heats to determine progress to the following round.

Keirin 
Keirin was created in the 1940’s and is the Japanese version of the traditional sprint event. Up to seven riders compete over 2000m. A special motorised bike called a derny leads the field for the first 1,400m starting at 30km/h and bringing the riders up to a speed of 50km/h. Cyclists manoeuvre for the best position before the derny leaves the track. It is then an all up frantic sprint for the finish line. The first two riders across the line in the qualifying heats go through to the first round with the losers contesting repechage heats. The two winners of each of three repechage heats go through to the first round. In the first round the first three riders in each of the two heats qualify for the medal final and the losers ride off for 7-12 place.

Team Sprint 
The Team Sprint pits two teams of three riders against each other and the clock over three laps of the track. The task of the starting rider is to get out of the gate cleanly and bring the team up to high speed as quickly as possible. After one lap the first rider peels off to allow the second rider to make the pace. This rider completes their effort with one lap to go and then it’s up to the final cyclist, traditionally a time trial specialist, to finish off. The leading rider must not swing up until a full lap is complete and must peel off between an area of 15 metres before and after their start line, otherwise the team will be disqualified. The fastest eight teams go through from the qualifying round to the first round and from there, the fastest two winning teams contest the race for gold and silver and the other two winners contest the race for bronze.

Team Pursuit
Four endurance cyclists comprise a pursuit team and their success relies on how well they work together. The rider on the front of the quartet must keep the pace as high as possible but must not ride so fast that he drops any of his following teammates. The cyclists within a team must ride as close as possible to the rear wheel of the rider in front of them to gain every possible aerodynamic benefit. The front rider will swing up the track at the end of his “turn” and must smoothly rejoin his team in the fourth wheel position. The pace is then set by the rider now on the front of the quartet. The time is taken on the front wheel of the third rider across the line and it is often the case that only three riders will finish.

In the qualifying round each team rides alone on the track against the clock with the fastest eight teams going through. In the first round and finals, one team starts on each side of the track and they race each other and the clock. The fastest two winning teams of the first round contest the race for gold and silver and the other two winners race for bronze.

In the finals the winner is determined by either catching the other team or recording the fastest time. A team is deemed to have been caught if the team chasing comes within one metre of the back wheel of the rider at the back of the rival team.

Omnium
This event will make its Olympic debut in London in 2012. It cycling’s version of a decathlon- a medley event involving a Flying Lap (250m time trial), Points Race (30km for men, 20km for women), Individual Pursuit (4km for men, 3km for women), Scratch Race (15km for men, 10km for women), Kilometre Time Trial (500m for women) and finally an Elimination Race (every two laps the last rider over the line is eliminated).