Cromwell motivated by GreenEDGE-AIS debut

The talented 23-year-old showed plenty of promise during 2009 and 2010 whilst riding for the Australian national team – her move to GreenEDGE-AIS sees her reunited with national women’s road coach Martin Barras, who has been overseeing recruitment for the squad.

Despite being Australia’s best finisher in the women’s road race at the 2010 UCI Road World Championships in Geelong, Victoria, Cromwell’s 2011 was anything but spectacular thanks to a mid-season squad change, although she is motivated to make good on the promise she has shown in seasons past.

“It’s good to have their belief placed in me; I had a pretty rough time this year and wasn’t doing that much racing. I went from 2010, where I was doing a crazy amount of racing – I was doing pretty much everything on the national program – to doing nothing. It’s good to get be back in the program and getting some structure back again.

“They [Barras and team director Dave McPartland] were looking at me and seeing whether I still had that drive in me and the potential to be back where I was in 2009. Also, you know what to expect from Australian teams – sometimes with the foreign teams you don’t know what to expect.”

And with the likes of German veteran Judith Arndt and Dane-turned-kiwi Linda Villumsen – two very successful riders – in the squad, Cromwell is well placed to learn from some of the best in the sport. “As I’m still developing in the sport, I like to have people who are better than me in a team where I can keep learning from them – I don’t see myself ready to step up and be a leading rider quite yet,” she said.

“Having them in the team and knowing you have a job to do means that if you don’t do your job to help them win, they don’t have the best chance of winning for the team. It’s what I want in a team – to be learning and becoming the best rider I can be,” she added.

While the future looks bright, Cromwell admits that she questioned her future in the sport given the demise of teams, the lack of funding and the problems she encountered with the Lotto-Honda squad in the first half of the season. “This year I spent a lot of time off the bike and it was an up-and-down time,” she explained.

A strong solo win in the Portarlington round of the Jayco Bay Series Classic earlier in the year was foreshadowed by issues surrounding her team in Europe, which threatened to completely derail her 2011 campaign, although finding a new squad was vital to making good on the form she had show the previous season.

She made the switch to HiTec-UCK mid-season and began to prosper later in the year, which in all likelihood kept her in cycling. “It was nice at HiTec – they got me back on track,” Cromwell explained. “Being a small team they were well organised and really looked after me.

“I had a good program and raced with some girls who were really motivated to do their job for the team. It got my head back in the sport and when it came to the end of the year and I had options, it was nice.”

She beat new GreenEDGE-AIS teammate Shara Gillow in the aforementioned round of the Jayco Bay Series and Cromwell will return to Australia’s premier criterium series in early January before a crack at the road race at the Australian National Road Race Championships in Buninyong, where she’s hopeful of a solid showing.

She’ll start her European campaign with Omloop Het Nieuwsblad (in which she finished eighth this year) and several Belgian races before the Ronde van Drenthe women’s World Cup round, possibly riding La Fleche Wallonne before some hilly events in Holland including the Ronde van Gelderland and Omloop van Borsele, the GP Ciudad de Valladolid, plus the Giro di Trentino, Giro d’Italia and Thuringen Rundfahrt.

Later in the season, Cromwell will be aiming to gain selection for road Worlds in both the road race and team time trial, a new addition to the program for 2012. Having trained with Cromwell, this writer can attest to her skills on a bike, which even have seasoned professionals talking about her tenacity and descending ability. She says that next year’s world titles should suit her given its tough characteristics.

“The Worlds course is a much better one for me – hilly, technical and really hard. I know in the past I’ve had success in tough races where you always have to be switched on,” she said. “And then obviously the team time trial squad we’ll send will be special – you just have to look at the names on our roster. We’ve got the top two women from this year’s world championships and then we’ve also got Shara Gillow. We’re definitely a medal chance.

And the Olympics – is Cromwell making a bid to be in the team for London? “Everyone wants to go to the Olympics but for me it’s not an awesome course – I can still have a crack at selection, however,” she said.

Cromwell’s GreenEDGE-AIS recruitment is part of the process of maturation within Australian women’s cycling and she says that overall, the ladies’ side of the sport is making progress, citing the likes of her team, Rabobank, HiTec and Specialized’s support of what was the Highroad women’s team as examples of renewal.

“It’s going in the right direction and there’s still a long way to go but at least there are more teams doing something and allowing the women to be more professional as opposed to just providing a basic team structure,” she said.

Twitter: @Les_Clarke