Sprint star Matthew Glaetzer wins third consecutive national sprint title

AUSTRALIA’S top male track sprinter Matthew Glaetzer has started every race at this week’s national championships as if it were an Olympic final.

05/02/16 - Shane Perkins and Matthew Glaetzer competing at the Track Cycling National Titles at the Adelaide Super-Drome. Photo Tom Huntley

AUSTRALIA’S top male track sprinter Matthew Glaetzer has started every race at this week’s national championships as if it were an Olympic final.

As he prepares himself for next month’s world titles in London and the Rio Olympics in August, the reigning Commonwealth Games champion executed under real and perceived pressure by winning his third consecutive national sprint title in Adelaide.

The 23-year-old showed his trademark late burst of speed in beating Shane Perkins - who is racing to save his international cycling career - in the semi-final and then Jacob Schmid in the final.

“Every race this year, including this week, I’ve been having the mindset of ‘this could be an Olympic race’ and just go out there putting pressure and expectation on myself to kind of simulate the pressure of an Olympic Games,” Glaetzer said.

“Normally I go in and just say ‘I’ll do my best’ but I’ve been putting myself outside of my comfort zone to try to execute well in a pressure environment.”

The anchor of Australia’s three-man team sprint has been banking big-stage experience for four years since he became world champion and went to his first Olympics in 2012.

Now six months from Rio he hopes it will all come in handy.

“Having experienced an Olympics already is a huge advantage, an athlete doesn’t know what it’s going to be like until they get there, I know what to expect so it will be more of a comfortable environment for me.”

“Again (at the world championships) it’s making sure I race well ... practicing racing the same guys I’m going to race in Rio so it’s a good test to see where they’re at, where I’m at, and try to match it with those guys.”

05/02/16 - Matthew Glaetzer scored his third consecutive national sprint title. Picture: Tom Huntley

Glaetzer also went into this week’s national championships wanting the hat-trick of individual sprint titles after his triumphs in 2014 and 2015.

“I knew it was going to be hard because I’ve been in a pretty heavy training load, it was always going to be a challenge,” he said.

“But I was really happy with the qualifying time and it set me up.”

To win he had to produce two almighty rides to come from three bike lengths behind to over-power Schmid in the home straight of their final.

While it could be a concern that Glaetzer is conceding such a gap to his rivals in their cat-and-mouse sprint, he looks at the positive of being able to shut it down.

“It’s definitely good to be able to win from the front and the back and even if the gap is possibly bigger than I had expected, I can still close it down pretty quickly so it’s encouraging,” he said.

“It felt good closing down that gap but it pushed me to the limit that’s for sure.”

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Originally published as Sprint star Matthew Glaetzer wins third consecutive national sprint title