Sprint star focusing on tactics over speed

Australian sprint star Stephanie Morton says she needs to improve the tactical side of her riding to truly be a gold medal threat at the Rio Olympics.

The rising star of Australian cycling's sprint team has established herself as the fastest woman on the planet - but knows she won't achieve Olympic glory without some tactical tweaking.

Competing in her fourth track cycling world championships in London last week, Stephanie Morton showed off her impressive power by posting the fastest flying lap in the women's sprint - stopping the clock at 10.760s.

It was a sizzling time just shy of the velodrome record, and cemented why there are such high hopes for the 2014 Commonwealth Games gold medal winner ahead of the Rio Games in five months.

The 25-year-old still considers herself the baby of the sprint team having only switched to the discipline four years ago after a career riding tandem which won her Paralympic gold at the London Games in 2012.

And Morton concedes that while she has the legs to be the fastest woman on the planet, she'll need to work on her head-to-head tactics in order to become a threat in the finals - which she'll need to do to feature among the medals in Rio.

In the head-to-head format, the ability to time your sprint is as important as having the superior top-end speed.

"I think people forget I'm the baby of the women's sprint team. I've got the legs, but it's just playing catch-up (tactically) and getting to that level that is needed to be on top," Morton told AAP.

"Yes I qualified well (in London), but we come here to race.

"(Qualifying fastest) gives you a good understanding of where your legs are but after that it's all about tactics and sprinting and the (qualifiers) kind of go out the window a bit.

"For me that's something that I'm definitely working on."

Morton was eliminated by teammate Anna Meares, an 11-time world champion and veteran of 13 world championships, who came out on top in the best-of-three heat.

Meares used every bit of her experience to edge her young teammate but it could prove to be a valuable lesson for Morton, who has five months to fine-tune her approach before Rio.

"It's easy enough to practice tactics at the Adelaide superdrome when there's no one around and no pressure but it's not until you're under the bright lights and you have the crowd and you have the pressure of having to perform that you really see where you're at," she said.

"For me (the key will be) getting in lots of racing and just being thrown in the deep end basically.

"It's easy to watch on a screen and say what you need to do, but when you're travelling at 50-60km/h and having to make split second decisions it's a whole different story."


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Source: AAP


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Sprint star focusing on tactics over speed | SBS News