Australia’s Olympic cycling veteran Anna Meares is bigger, stronger than ever ahead of Rio Olympics

ANNA Meares is 32 and inching closer to a fourth and likely final Olympics in Rio but is still setting PBs in the gym almost every week which is as exciting for her as it is scary for her rivals.

Sprint queen Anna Meares. Picture: Sarah Reed.

ANNA Meares is 32 and inching closer to a fourth and likely final Olympics in Rio but is still setting PBs in the gym almost every week which is as exciting for her as it is scary for her rivals.

Two days before Australia’s cycling team is named for Rio, Meares has revealed she has never been this big or this strong in her life.

By August Meares plans to be back at her traditional race weight — which is kept private within the team — but she expects her power-to-weight ratio to be turbo-charged when she hits the velodrome.

The dual Olympic gold medallist can squat 150kg, deadlift 130kg and single leg press 230kg — which is like pushing two fridges stacked on top of one another into the air with one leg.

“I’m actually the heaviest I’ve ever been, my physical body is the biggest and strongest it’s been,” Meares said.

“That’s being reflected in the weights that I can lift and the training times I can put out.

“My biggest issue has been that I hadn’t had a consistent block to develop that but in 2016 I’ve finally got that.

“One thing I took from Chris Hoy since Glasgow (2014 Commonwealth Games) is that as the body gets older you can still tolerate lots of things but the attention to detail you have to pay to nutrition, stretching, recovery all becomes magnified.

“I’ve been hitting PBs in the gym most weeks so it’s nice when you’ve spent so much time in a hard slog to actually see some outcomes like that.”

Meares put the finishing touches to her bid for Olympic selection at last week’s track racing in Melbourne and her spot on the team will almost certainly be rubber-stamped by the Australian Olympic Committee on Tuesday.

Meares warms up. Picture: Hamish Blair

She is also considered to be a strong contender to be named Australia’s flag bearer for the opening ceremony which will be announced on Wednesday, but Meares is not even taking her selection for the team for granted until it’s official.

“I go back to Adelaide for a couple of days and await news on selection and then hopefully be on that plane on July 6,” she said after racing in Melbourne.

In Rio it will be 12 years since Meares won gold on Olympic debut in Athens in 2004 at just 20.

“In Athens I was successful but kind of new and the team in general was really successful,” she said.

“Beijing I had my accident and there were a lot of people who thought ‘oh the girl who broke her neck’ but not everyone knew who I was.

“Then London was the rivalry with Vicky (Pendleton) and the big win in the sprint and I think that’s where people connected my name with what I did.

“Rio would kind of be the next step in the evolution, this time has been more emotional than anything just with general life and I think this is the first Games where I’ve gone ‘I don’t have to do it, but I want to do it’.”

With her old sparring partner Pendleton now retired, Meares says the sprinting game is constantly changing and she had to change with it.

“I’m not selected yet and the sprinting game is different — even to what London was,” Meares said.

“I’ve had to do different training, different tactical preparation.

“Pre-London you were lucky to get three girls go sub-11 (seconds), me, Vicky and (China’s) Shuang Guo where as now you’re looking at 10-15 girls who can ride at that level and the depth is significantly different.”

Originally published as Australia’s Olympic cycling veteran Anna Meares is bigger, stronger than ever ahead of Rio Olympics