Wollongong shines, top performances and AusCycling 'in-culture' in selection process

The headlines and some of the less-known aspects of the Wollongong 2022 Road Cycling World Championships from the perspective of SBS Sport's Jamie Finch-Penninger.

A general view of the peloton competing while fans cheer during the 95th UCI Road World Championships 2022, Men Elite Road Race. (Photo by Con Chronis/Getty Images) Credit: Con Chronis/Getty Images

Wollongong puts on a show

I’ve lived in Wollongong for four years during university more than a decade ago and I was at first surprised and then trepidatious when I heard that it was going to be the venue for the world championships. For all that it is – to much acclaim – the ‘only UCI bike city in the southern hemisphere, it’s not traditionally a bike-friendly place.

There are plenty of nice areas to ride, but in my past experience, you wouldn’t go anywhere near the roads for fear of the anti-cyclist nutjob, or the over-entitled driver that would put you in danger.

Being in Wollongong for the eight days of the world championships, the city seemed transformed in attitude towards cyclists, cycling infrastructure and, by the end of the event, interest in the sport.

I monitored the Illawarra Mercury (the local paper) social media posts and some message boards, and some of those comments were less than pleasant, but out of all the riding and driving I did over the course of the event I saw no close passes or dangerous driving in relation to cyclists, and a number of instances of people encouraging international squads and local riders.

Some of my media colleagues have said that they had a few close passes and I did observe one ute that pulled up to the course looking for trouble, before pulling a donut and yelling threats out the window, but it really was the one isolated incident from my perspective.

The climbs of Dumfries and Ramah Avenue on the city circuit were the focus for the fans, local homeowners pulling out sunshades and their TVs to watch the race both on TV and on the road, while youngsters set up sales of cordial and baked goods.

There was a front-yard impromptu gig from a rock band starting with ‘Smells like Teen Spirit’, and of course, the famous pink-onesied nature strip runner Morgan, specifically referenced as being an inspiration for Zoe Backstedt on her long solo ride to the rainbow jersey in the junior women’s race.

The challenge is to build on this improvement with a long-lasting legacy for the region, the new infrastructure is a good if incomplete start, but to my knowledge, there isn’t going to be any road events planned in the area for the future, though hopefully, there’s going to be more scope for events at the new criterium track.

You can find details of the legacy plan here.

Outstanding performances AVV / Bäckstedt

(L-R) Marianne Vos of Netherlands and Annemiek Van Vleuten of Netherlands celebrate celebrates the victory after the 95th UCI Road World Championships 2022 - Women Elite Road Race. Credit: Tim de Waele/Getty Images

It’s hard to pick out the standouts from what was a fun week of cycling, but the women’s racing was what really captivated the imagination from a racing and narrative perspective. A consistent theme of the top women in the sport are that they’re there to have fun, which fuels their motivation to achieve at the top level.

The two riders, at different ends of their careers, who showed that in very different manners during the world championships were Annemiek van Vleuten in the elites and Zoe Bäckstedt in the juniors.

Van Vleuten’s appetite for pain borders on masochistic, and she’s spoken a number of times about getting the best out of herself in every scenario as what motivates her the most rather than racking up the wins. In Wollongong (as a side note, it’s nice to know that the Dutch have trouble saying one of our city names given the tongue-twisters they provide the rest of the year), van Vleuten was being talked about throughout the week.

She put in a below-par performance in the time trial, then crashed in dramatic fashion with some sort of chain jam in the mixed team time trial, looking distraught as she was picked up slowly from the road and taken to hospital where scans confirmed a fractured elbow. The good news was that van Vleuten could ride, albeit with a lot of pain.

Clearly van Vleuten is better at dealing with pain than anyone in the world, she hung tough on the climbs and then unleashed a perfectly timed attack as her chasing group caught the leaders under the flame rouge. The crowd oohed and ahhed, and then watched in disbelief as van Vleuten took what she described as ‘my best victory’. If you want some inspiration about how to approach setbacks in your life, check out some of the quotes from her post-race press conference.

If there’s a successor to van Vleuten waiting in the ranks (apart from our own Sarah Gigante), it’s the prodigiously talented Bäckstedt. While van Vleuten was a late starter in cycling, Bäckstedt already has five junior world titles to her name across road, cyclocross and track.

“I enjoy riding my bike, it doesn’t matter which discipline it’s in, I just have fun doing it.,” said Bäckstedt. “There’s no pressure on me to perform at my best, I just try to have fun and I find that when I’m having fun, the results come.”

We get to see Bäckstedt race with the professional from next year onwards, and she’s going to make a big splash at the top level.

Aussies deliver goods without rainbows

It was a world championship without a rainbow jersey, but the Australians didn’t go missing out on the roads of Wollongong and as a nation, it was a performance that delivered on the expectations as a host country.

The final tally was two silvers (Grace Brown, elite women’s ITT, Hamish McKenzie, junior men’s ITT) and two bronze medals (mixed team time trial, Michael Matthews, elite men’s road race), but aside from just the results, the teams were always trying to put themselves in a position for victory with the resources that they had.

The elite teams in particular raced in a manner to put themselves in with a shot at victory across a number of scenarios with attacks off the front of the race, while keeping their primary riders, Alex Manly and Michael Matthews, well-protected.

In seven of the last eight world championships, Michael Matthews has been Australia’s highest finisher. He’s been the leading light for so many years and keeps on turning up and delivering in world championships, so it was particularly fitting that it was ‘Bling’ on the podium to close out the week of racing in Wollongong.

The Australian Cycling Team a closed shop?

During racing, and in press conferences with riders present, I thought it a bit insensitive to bring up selection questions, especially when the riders have no say in those selections.

I did touch on those questions in the pieces below and now that we’ve seen the results out on the road and some insights into what the riders thought of the racing, there are some good aspects and some creeping negatives to the Australian Cycling Team selection policy.

The good part was that the riders selected were all exceptionally positive, all very driven to be part of the team’s success and happy with their roles within the team. It was a remarkable turnaround from disappointing campaigns for the team at the Olympics and the world championships and the Olympics in the road races, when the elite road coordinator Rory Sutherland came out and publicly criticised the Australian team culture after the world championships.

This year, everybody with the team bubble was in lockstep and everyone included thanks to their teammates for their rides in the post-race interviews. One of the final answers of Simon Clarke’s interview was revealing.

“Last year was a real disappointment in terms of Australian performance and today’s performance, and the way they selected the team this year we can move forward with the same squad,” said Clarke, the most experienced Australian rider in world championships with 11 appearances.

Reading the obvious subtext, that suggests there was dissatisfaction within the squad in the past and the selection process.

In the past, the selection process was very poor. There would be limited to no communication with riders prior to selection, and no communication once selection was made if you weren’t part of the team. Lucy Kennedy, who I’ll use as a reference as she’s been on the record about this in the past but is by no means the only Australian rider in the same situation, received no communication around selection for the Tokyo Olympics despite being one of Australia’s best riders suited to the course.

The communication has been made significantly better with the employment of Rory Sutherland, all the riders I talk to off-the-record about selection for Australia have said that he’s been checking in, and has even provided hands-on assistance for injured riders and ones with personal difficulties.

The negative is those riders who feel they are outside the Australian team looking in. It’s long been a bugbear of mine that the Australian Cycling Team prefers to recognise their own above the other exceptional cyclists that have fallen outside the national body’s development path.

Neve Bradbury, by any estimation of the Women’s WorldTour season, was one of the three top performers for Australia in the biggest races. She has never been part of an Australian team at a world championship on the road.

Georgie Howe impressed everyone except the selectors in her first proper season as a cyclist - yes, first full season at all. She qualified for a free spot by winning the Oceania championships time trial, impressed in Europe on limited racing enough to be signed up by BikeExchange-Jayco, and it would have been great experience for a rider who has the physiology to go on to great success within the sport.

I did raise this question with Jesse Korf, executive general manager for the Australian Cycling Team, who pointed towards the policy that some events/activites are development-focused and some are performance-based. However, there seems to be precious little chance for older riders outside the system to prove their ability, particularly on the basis of the performances ignored this time around.

There were a number of other riders that fit a similar bill, I’ll highlight Liam Johnston in the Under-23 men’s who would seem to have been a perfect fit on the course but has never been a development rider with AusCycling.

From a human perspective, it's easy to understand how a rider who's been consistently in touch with coaches and selectors over a long time gets picked over a rider that has just been doing their own thing, particularly when team cohesion is such a public goal. However, to reach the same level with no national team support is arguably the more impressive feat, and those athletes would love to get the opportunity to represent their country.