Since the end of the Olympics, there has been a new man at the head of Australian Cycling Team, with Jesse Korf taking over as the interim and then put officially in the position of Executive General Manager of Performance within the Australian Cycling Team.
Taking over after the contentious tenure of Simon Jones- which saw a number of landmark development programs scrapped, athletes complain about big calls to effectively end their careers without proper chance to ammend the record, a cavalier attitude to any complaints brought, and in the end not a lot of success - Korf has brought more of a people-managing style to the role.
It sees more responsibility devolved to managers, while Korf focuses on the big picture of a strategy that extends all the way to the 2032 Olympic Games in Brisbane. In an interview with SBS Sport, Korf explained the strategy, which encompasses all of the major cycling disciplines, in the context of the 2022 Wollongong World Championships.
"It's very much a team-based approach," said Korf. "We have a number of teams including Donna Rae-Szalinski and Matt Gilmore for the juniors; Rory Sutherland and Zak Dempster directing the elite phase.
"The directeur sportifs are really in charge of the race strategy, I'm more looking over the whole and ensure that from a strategy perspective and an equipment perspective logistically that everything's going well.
"We perform to the best of our abilities if we best leverage the abilities that each member of the team brings. There needs to be strong components for rider input and there needs to be structures and frameworks where yes, there's accountability and I have oversight, but ultimately we need to empower those who are working with the athletes to get out their peak performance."
The aims of the management and development teams are very long-term, pointing towards those home Olympic Games as the peak point with certain other key goals along the way as highlights, with the home World Championships in Wollongong one where the Australian Cycling Team is looking to shine on the road. With the majority of high performance funding coming from Sport Australia, with that based on the number of medals and medal potential for Olympic Games, the focus on the Olympics by the Australian Cycling Team isn't going anywhere soon.
"What we're working on with AusCycling as a whole - and obviously the performance program is part of that - is really looking at a 10-year strategy," said Korf. "How do we approach '32 (Brisbane Olympics), how do we perform more sustainably and create a bit of balance?
"Obviously, the Olympics are the pinnacle goal, that doesn't change, but we don't want to sacrifice development goals and also recognise other pinnacle goals. So for this cycle, we have three targets, we want to do well at the Commonwealth Games, we want to do well at the road worlds here because they're hosted by Australia and we want to do well in Paris (2024 Olympics)."
To that end, there's a development and talent management strategy that is aimed at those Brisbane Games. Of the elite road athletes competing in Wollongong, it's probably just Luke Plapp who will likely still be in the prime of their career, other potential stars in the right age bracket like Sarah Gigante, Neve Bradbury and Alyssa Polites didn't make the cut.
"It's a balance between trying to identify where the highest probability is and which individuals have the opportunity and have been inspired to do something special," said Korf. "And try to build some specific projects around them towards a specific purpose. At the same time we want to look at creating an ecosystem and some consistency in development structures."
The team selection is always a major talking point at significant events, and the home world championships have shone a beacon on selection once again. No riders were fielded for the Under 23 men's time trial, no riders will feature in the Under 23 women's races and Georgie Howe wasn't given a call-up to the elite women's time trial despite winning an additional spot by winning the Oceania Championships.
Korf highlighted a dichotomy between a performance focus and a development focus when it came to selection, with the world championships selections subject to strict performance criteria.
"Number one - you're looking at development," said Korf. "So camps, programs specifically labelled for development. So, whether you're looking at BMX, road or track - we're trying to integrate track and road more, and road and mountain bike more.
"We've got development labelled activites and we've got ones where we really want to deliver and perform. The world championships fall into the later. We have quite stringent selection policies to keep the bar high, but at the same time we want to ensure that we want to keep opportunities for those development opportunities to arise.
"This past year, we've done four projects for the U19s, what we call the 'Road to Wollongong' which we will sustain. We've put the U23 Nations Cup events back on the map, including the Tour de l'Avenir. We're creating camps based programs together with the state institutes to keep as many riders viable for as long as possible.
"Ultimately, to get selected for a major championships or a Games, that is performance based, it's not a development opportunity."
Another point of contention has been around the monetary contributions from junior athletes required to secure their place at the world championships, with the cost of going to Wollongong for a home world championships approximately $4,000 per athlete. That number is significantly higher for track athletes looking to compete in the track world championships in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, France.
"I think there are very few, if any national federations that can fully support their riders end-to-end for a world championships," said Korf. "What we do is we have our budget and our resourcing... where at a high level do we balance our performance objectives and our development objectives? And then we have a set number.
"Essentially the overall cost of how much goes over is how we determine the levy. The cost per athlete - differs a bit from program to program - is about three to one. So for U19s going to a world championship, the investment that we put in is about three times as much as the levy on most occasions."
"The challenge is that travel and accommodation got more expensive over the years because of COVID. Even with the home world championships - even though the travel component is lessened - it has been the same or higher as the international world championships we have been to in the past. Ideally, we'd put a zero levy on a single event, unfortunately, at the moment, that's not a reality for us."
Where the focus falls during any particular event from the public and the media is something that varies, but Korf is looking to buffer the team and staff from the brunt of it as he feels that's something that he can help the team out with on the ground while they focus on their roles. The other part is maintaining that long-term focus, which is where he identifies the main things he's looking forward to in coming years.
"There are a couple of really exciting areas," said Korf. "Obviously, from a long-term lens, all the opportunity that comes along with hosting the Olympic Games and really being able to build on that and help the next generation through.
"I think the other thing to look forward to is that we're trying to work more with partners in both the pro domain and nationally to maybe be a little less fixed in the way we go about things and let athletes move towards a pro and independent career and then find a way to engage with them and bring them back both from a cultural perspective and a performance perspective."
That is a strategy that reflects the winning teams at the Olympics, with many of the athletes involved in medal-winning teams like the Italian, German and Danish team pursuit squads mixing track and road seasons very succesfully. With the majority of the Australian team pursuit members from the Tokyo Olympics now competing on the road with professional teams, the potential to do something similar to those other nations is something the Australian Cycling Team is exploring.
"That has been a big shift in the last few months where it's been incredibly exciting to see Alexandra Manly, Georgia Baker and Luke Plapp doing both track and road," said Korf. "We have a number of really intelligent athletes getting into that space. We've seen the largest number of athletes stepping into the pros with 15 athletes signing pro contracts from October to now, which is ten months and is incredible and very exciting to see."
What remains to be established is the extent to which success follows the change in the Australian Cycling Team, and with the big goal so far in the future, how they will navigate the steps to get to Brisbane 2032 with some Australian medal winners ready to go.
