A nightmare in waiting?

Based on the dubious form of Australia’s best hope for a medal, Anthony Tan already wonders if the decision to exclude Mark Renshaw will be one that will keep selectors awake at night long into the future.

Regrets keep me up at night so I do everything not to have them. Asked by Tour of Britain host Ned Boulting how he thought Mark Renshaw would fare next year at Rabobank, Mark Cavendish replied with a grin: "He's going to have to get used to coming second..."

On the final stage of the race in Dumfries, and with the help of Renshaw once again, the Manx Express notched his second win Sunday; the boy from Bathurst did indeed finish second, but for obvious reasons.

It may well be the last time the pair ride together as team-mates.

You have to hand it to Renshaw, who, a month shy of his 29th birthday, has decided to go for broke and take on a mercurial talent many regard as unbeatable when he's on song.

Being paired with someone almost everyone regards as the world's finest lead-out man has much to do with Cav's truckload of wins the past three years. But what I'm readily awaiting is not just how Renshaw will fare against Cavendish, but how much Cavendish will miss Renshaw, to better understand just how influential the latter was.

Will Cavendish be as prolific? Will he be as fast? Or will Renshaw, Greipel, Farrar et al be faster?

Renshaw, courtesy of his omission from the Australian men's road team to contest the world championships this coming Sunday, has already set the 2012 Tour Down Under as a target. My feeling is that it will take him a while to get going; to become accustomed to being a leader, and get his sprint train sorted.

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So much has already been said on the subject of his elision by the selectors – namely, Kevin Tabotta, Matt White, Rik Fulcher and Brian Stephens. But the subject is far from being trite.

For many including myself, it was an oversight so egregious, it's worth asking whether a completely independent panel should be created, so that in future, we can all be assured no trade team interests came into play.

If such a panel were to exist, one person I'd like to see on there is former professional Stephen Hodge.

An upstanding citizen of the Australian cycling community and board member of Cycling Australia since 1999, Hodge currently holds one of three vice-presidential roles at CA (below president Klaus Mueller and senior vice president Mark Fulcher), and sits on their high performance management committee.

Another is Phil Anderson. While he may not have won a road world championship, I'm sure Anderson, the first non-European to wear the Tour de France maillot jaune and arguably Australia's finest one-day rider, has the experience and intuition to know what it would take to win the Worlds, and the best composition of riders to advance such an objective.

A member – or two – of the selection panel not part of Cycling Australia? I think that would be a good thing, simply because the man behind CA's main sponsor, Jayco Caravans – Gerry Ryan – is also the primary benefactor of the GreenEDGE project.

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I would also like to see more transparency among the selection panel; if not for the media/general public then at least for the riders themselves, so those left out – as well as those chosen – can be guaranteed the decision making process is not just objective, but completely thorough.

For example, does each of the four panel members carry equal weight with regard to their choices, and in terms of the selection process, what sort of structure – if any – do they follow?

Renshaw told RIDE Cycling Review's publisher, Rob Arnold, last week: "To tell you the truth I don't know the exact roles of everyone in the selection criteria, and I'll be sending some emails around [to] ask for some clarification on who is picking the team and why it's been picked like it has been.

"I'll see what they have to say," he said. "Basically I'd like to know who is making the decisions and maybe ask them personally why they haven't given me a shot."

Asked how keen he was to ride, Renshaw said that over the past two months, he chased up CA officials and made "numerous calls" to discuss the topic because "I already had the feeling that they weren't confident or really didn't want to take me".

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As for Australia's main man to get the job done, Matt Goss, whose last victory was on 22 May at the Tour of California, White said he would have to "show a little bit in one of these races on Friday or Sunday," referring last week's Kampioenschap van Vlaanderen and Grand Prix d'Isbergues, "just because he needs that confidence back in himself.

"[Goss] needs to show the team that if we're going to put a team around him on Sunday week, that he's back," said White.

Well, Friday at the Kampioenschap van Vlaanderen, Robbie McEwen – like Renshaw, on the 'long-list', but another exclusion from the nine-man squad to contest the Worlds – was our best-place finisher in the 196 kilometre race, placing fourth to winner, German Marcel Kittel. Goss was 126th, 3:09 back.

Sunday at the GP Isbergues, Stuart O'Grady demonstrated that finishing the Vuelta has put him in good nick, where 30km from the finish of the 204km race, he eventually found himself in a two-man break with Dane Jonas Aaen Jorgensen from Saxo Bank-SunGard, only to fall victim to a flat tire and cramps at the end. Goss was a DNF; Baden Cooke was the only other Aussie to finish, 83rd @ 0'53.

It could well be Plan B, then: Simon Gerrans or Heinrich Haussler, who last saw the podium on 9 February, when he won the third stage of the Tour of Qatar.

It's unlikely our other fast finisher, Stage 2 Vuelta a Espa̱a winner Chris Sutton, has the physical maturity to be there in the final of a road world championship Рand O'Grady is supposed to be captain rather than leader Рmeaning there is no Plan C.

I keep wondering whether the omission of Renshaw, McEwen and Michael Matthews will be a decision that will keep our selectors awake at night long into the future.

A week from now, we'll know the answer.

Follow Anthony on Twitter: @anthony_tan