Rio Olympics 2016: Australia not worried about late scout mission of Rio’s new velodrome

CYCLING Australia is not concerned that almost its entire track team will compete on Rio de Janeiro’s new velodrome virtually sight unseen at the Olympic Games in August.

The velodrome, under construction, at the Olympic Village in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

CYCLING Australia is not concerned that almost its entire track team will compete on Rio de Janeiro’s new velodrome virtually sight unseen at the Olympic Games in August.

The official test event at the venue was originally scheduled for March 18-20 — soon after next week’s world championships in London — but has been pushed back to April 29 to May 1 because of a delay in the track installation.

But CA high performance manager Kevin Tabotta said the plan was only ever to send 1-2 athletes to the test event for a reconnaissance mission and the team would instead arrive for the Olympics well before competition to allow adequate training days.

“Even with the test event (originally) being (scheduled for) just after the worlds, we’d never planned to send a (big) group of athletes, it didn’t fit very well in the planning at all,” he said.

“This next (April 29) competition sits better in a planning point of view however we’ll still approach it with one or two athletes just for reconnaissance (and) it’s likely to be 1-2 endurance males at this stage.

“I’ll be travelling with them and (coach) Tim Decker and sports scientists to get the best possible intelligence off the track and also the environment around the track, getting in and out and training routes.

“It’s not a concern for us (the majority of the team not racing on the track until the Olympics) at all, the most important thing is we get a look at the track, we get some video and feedback for the athletes.

“You have to remember most of the time when these athletes travel to a major competition they don’t always get exposure to the track that they compete on.

“So they are very well versed in finding out as much as they can in the seven or eight days they’re training (beforehand).

“And the Olympics we will be going in a little bit earlier compared to a world titles so they’ll get plenty of training days.”

While the track delay has not forced CA to change its Olympic preparations, Tabotta wants an assurance from organisers within the next month that the test event will definitely go ahead.

Nations are yet to be told what races will be held during the practice meet or what the competition schedule will look like.

“I don’t have any information or intelligence which says it won’t be ready,” Tabotta said.

“Certainly I know they’ve pushed the date back so there is an element of ‘what if the track isn’t ready for the test event?’ but we won’t make any fixed plans or flight bookings until we get 100 per cent confirmation from the organisers that it is going ahead.”

The test event on the velodrome will be immediately followed by another CA delegation headed by Brad McGee to survey the road courses in Rio.

The road contingent is expected to include Australia’s top time triallists Rohan Dennis and Katrin Garfoot who will gather information for themselves and teammates.

“They’re the first two we’ve been talking to but Brad and (women’s coach) Martin Barras have been speaking to some other athletes to see how it fits into their schedule,” Tabotta said.

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Originally published as Rio Olympics 2016: Australia not worried about late scout mission of Rio’s new velodrome