Aussie cycling legend Anna Meares responds to pressure with three gold medals at nationals

AS if anyone needed any more reminding of Anna Meares’ ability to rise to the occasion, she won her 35th national title on Friday night and it was arguably her best.

Anna Meares (South Australia) after winning the Team Sprint with Stephanie Morton (not in this image). Track Cycling at Adelaide Super-Drome, night 1. 03/02/16 Picture: Stephen Laffer

HOW do you write off a champion?

The answer is, you can’t. And not when it comes to Anna Meares.

As if anyone needed any more reminding of her inner strength and ability to rise to the occasion, Meares won her 35th national title on Friday night and it was arguably her best.

National title number 33, 34, 35, what’s the difference? This time, it was everything.

The importance of Meares winning the individual sprint at the Adelaide SuperDrome would be largely lost on the casual cycling observer or sports fan.

They would be the same voices that would scream ‘what?’ if Meares was inexplicably left out of Australia’s team for the track world championships in London next month or even worse, the Rio Olympics in August.

But that was — and in a much smaller way now still is — a very real threat posed both by the growing depth of sprint stocks in Australian women’s cycling and that old adversary which no one can control known as father time.

Meares is 32 and after three Olympic Games is in the twilight of her international cycling career.

Anna Meares showed she is still the boss with some great rides at the nationals.

Her teammates — who when it comes to Olympic selection are also her biggest rivals — Kaarle McCulloch and Stephanie Morton are in their prime.

McCulloch, 28, and Morton, 25, are embarking on the same upward trend in performance that Meares enjoyed five years earlier.

While the Olympic champion herself has been challenged to not only stay at the top of the tree but to find a way to get better. Again.

Three riders can’t fit into two spots for the team sprint of which world championship and Olympic selection is based on, and as good as Meares’ resume is, Morton and McCulloch have been coming hard and making a serious case to be picked.

At the start of the week national sprint coach Gary West said that while some sprinters like Morton and Nathan Hart had already booked their ticket to London for next month’s world championships, Meares needed to “do something”.

“She’s not in the same boat as some but not as comfortable as some others,” West said.

“There are three females who are all putting their hand up for selection for Rio and although it’s six or seven months away, we’re running out of opportunities for people to perform.”

They were strong, telling and possibly motivating words.

On Wednesday night with a suspect back and a slight quad strain, Meares was disappointed with her time in the team sprint for South Australia.

Then the following night a few eyebrows were raised when she qualified only third fastest in the individual sprint — slower than you guessed it, Morton and McCulloch.

Anna Meares has now won 35 national titles.

But we should have known what would happen next — we saw it in Beijing in 2008, in London in 2012 and in Paris at last year’s world championships.

Meares’ ability to respond when the chips are down is what makes the legend and in a sport like cycling where Olympic selection is at the discretion of selectors rather than based purely on times, is what makes her almost impossible to ignore.

Later admitting that this week was the most pressure she had felt in more than 10 years, Meares faced McCulloch in the semi-final and then Morton in the final of their cat-and-mouse sprint.

She beat both in straight sets. Four wins from four heats meaning neither battle went to a deciding third race.

“All things considered I was very, very proud of that ride — of all four rides tonight,” Meares said afterwards.

As Meares rounded the bend of the track she looked down at her pedals and pumped her fist for she knows what that result meant for her — and there were more than a few quietly relieved faces watching on nearby.

It means that Meares will almost certainly be on the plane to London for the world championships and while one race far from guarantees a ticket to Rio, it means she will be very hard to overlook from here.

Even more so after she made it a perfect three gold medals from three events on Saturday night by honouring the rainbow world champion’s jersey in the keirin final.

Originally published as Aussie cycling legend Anna Meares responds to pressure with three gold medals at nationals