Australia’s Oliver Bleddyn, Sam Welsford, Conor Leahy, Kelland O’Brien win gold in men’s team pursuit at Paris Olympics

Australia has a new “Awesome Foursome” — Oliver Bleddyn, Sam Welsford, Conor Leahy and Kelland O’Brien who have completed one of cycling’s greatest comeback stories.

Sam Welsford, Kelland O'brien, Conor Leahy and Oliver Bleddyn show off their gold medals. Picture: AFP

Moments after completing one of Australian cycling’s greatest comeback stories, four mobile phones buzzed in unison inside the National Velodrome in Paris.

“I’m not crying, you’re crying,’’ the WhatsApp message read.

Australia’s new “Awesome Foursome” — the gold medal winning pursuit team of Oliver Bleddyn, Sam Welsford, Conor Leahy and Kelland O’Brien — looked down at their phones, hugged each other and smiled in a way that only Olympic champions know how.

Sam Welsford, Kelland O'brien, Conor Leahy and Oliver Bleddyn celebrate on the podium. Picture: AFP

From his lounge room in Adelaide, former track cyclist Alex Porter sent the message that summed up the feelings of a nation.

It was Porter who was riding with the pursuit team at the Tokyo Games when inexplicably his handlebars snapped.

The split-second disaster prompted the most exhaustive review in AusCycling’s history, conducted under the premise that never again would Australia be embarrassed on the world stage and neither would any future rider fear that their bike would crumble beneath him.

The devastation from Tokyo was widespread, felt none more so than head coach of the endurance team Tim Decker.

He quit to work with China, only to return to lead Australia in the countdown to Paris.

“We’ve been to hell and back,’’ Decker said with tears in his eyes.

Oliver Bleddyn, Sam Welsford, Conor Leahy and Kelland O'brien in action. Picture: AFP

With a gold medal swinging around his neck, Welsford spoke of Porter’s message from home.

Welsford and O’Brien were the only two remaining riders from the Tokyo carnage.

“Porter’s been talking to us every minute of the day,’’ Welsford smiled.

“He just mentioned us before and said I’m not crying, you’re crying... he’s always been there for us.

“For him to be so heavily invested after what happened in Tokyo, that means a lot to us.

“We copped a big blow in Tokyo but I think that also lit a bit of fire for us to nail it.

“We just stuck our heads in the sand and got to work and that was probably the most important thing.’’

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History shows the new kings of track cycling stuck it to Great Britain. No one will ever remember that only 0.02 seconds split the two teams throughout the thrilling 4km race of cat and mouse.

Out-foxing, out-smarting and ultimately out-gunning the Brits, the Aussie boys roared into the record books in a time of 3:42.067.

Aiding the Australian’s cause was Great Britain’s own bike failure, when the saddle of Ethan Hayter slipped and sent his $100,000 bike zig-zagging wildly up the bank.

Genuine underdogs ahead of the games, Welsford spoke for his teammates when declaring that sneaking under the radar was an advantage, that was, until they broke the world record in qualifying.

“It was actually really nice to come here being a bit of the underdogs,’’ Welsford said.

“I think a lot of people kind of underestimated what we can do and I think we used that to our advantage here.

“We kind of kept under the radar and only really came out here (in the final) as our most important race.

“We all knew that we had it in us.

“When we saw 3:40.730 up on the board yesterday we were all a bit surprised but then we backed ourselves in and we knew that we could actually do that with our form.’’

In taking gold from Great Britain, Australia also relegated Tokyo Olympic champions Italy to bronze.

“The resilience these boys showed in Tokyo and to actually move forward from that and come back and make this happen is really high level history in cycling and track endurance,’’ Decker said.

Originally published as Australia’s Oliver Bleddyn, Sam Welsford, Conor Leahy, Kelland O’Brien win gold in men’s team pursuit at Paris Olympics