Where are the Aussie stars?

The UCI Road Cycling World Championships are finally here but you wouldn't know about it if you're a keen follower of Australia's elite men's team.

The UCI Road Cycling World Championships are finally here but you wouldn't know about it if you're a keen follower of Australia's elite men's team.

Under the instructions of Shayne Bannan, Australia's High Performance Manager, the men have been bunked down and kept in cotton wool in Canberra, away from prying eyes from fans, family and media.

Bannan says facilities at the AIS are distinctly better than those Geelong may have to offer in the weeks and days before Sunday's big showdown.

He also claims the weather in the nation's capital is a vast improvement from the Arctic conditions currently being experienced in the host city.

Both are very valid points I'm sure and who am I to dispute the wisdom of Australian cycling's head honcho?

But as the country's cycling fraternity makes a bee-line to the world titles, I would have thought promoting the sport's greatest assets by basing them in Geelong days before the start of the championships would have been priority.

As it turns out all members of the team (apart from time-trialist Michael Rogers and Cadel Evans, who headlines a Gala dinner in Melbourne on Thursday night), won't be arriving until late Friday.

Will that be enough time to acclimatise, familiarise and gather valuable information from other squad members who would have completed commitments on what is essentially on a foreign course?

The nine-man Aussies who will challenge for the rainbow jersey is perhaps the best combination of riders ever assembled on our shores.

This being the case wouldn't you think the best way to promote this so-called "Dream Team" would be to make it accessible to the throng of international media that is currently in Geelong?

What an advertisement for Australian cycling it would be in a week when headlines (predictable) have been hogged by the AFL Grand Final replay.

Evans, Gerrans, Davis, Rogers, O'Grady and Cooke are now all household names on the Aussie sporting landscape, yet those who have religiously followed their every move during the big European races screened on television mostly in the early hours of the morning may also miss out on the opportunity.

Geelong is the centre of the cycling universe this week, but it seems Cycling Australia are happy to keep their array of stars in another stratosphere for the time being.