The Coffee Ride #98, with Reece Homfray
MATTHEW Glaetzer has returned home to South Australia after confirming his medal potential for Rio with an outstanding performance in the sprint at the London world championships.
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INSIDE THE MIND OF A SPRINTER
MATTHEW Glaetzer has returned home to South Australia after confirming his medal potential for Rio with an outstanding performance in the sprint at the London world championships.
The 23-year-old qualified fastest then beat Theo Bos, Gregory Bauge and Denis Dmitriev on his way to the final where he lost in three heats to Olympic champion Jason Kenny.
“The result in London definitely gave me more confidence in knowing that yep, it’s confirmed I can fight it with the big boys for the medals which is what our sport is all about,” he said.
He also finished fifth in the team sprint, which he said was just an achievement to get on starter Nathan Hart’s wheel.
But come keirin day he was exhausted and bowed out early.
Here, Glaetzer walks us through what goes through the mind of one of the fastest men in the world on sprint day at a world championships:
The warm-up ...
“It’s generally in the morning around 9am and in the past I’ve not performed well in the morning — I’m not exactly a morning person but these days I’m really focusing on trying to fire myself up for qualifying.
“That means getting to the track two hours before qualifying time. My warm-up lasts for an hour and 10 minutes on the rollers, some stair jumps to activate and rest in between.
“I’m really trying to make sure I’m switched on, that’s the biggest focus for me, that I’m awake and whether that means taking caffeine to stimulate my brain a bit, just making sure I mentally rehearse how I’m going to execute my qualifying run and how much effort I put at different points of the windup.
“Throughout my warm-up I’ll periodically check in with (coach) Gary (West) to make sure we’re still on schedule because my warm-up is accurate to the minute and I need to slow down or speed up if the times change.
“Generally I’ll only listen to music before qualifying — electronic dance tracks, trying to get that pump up music going.”
Qualifying ...
“I’ll be sitting on the bike with a couple of riders in front of me and Gary will come up and just say to me the basics of executing the line correctly, my windup, and that’s really all he says.
“Focusing on getting the processes right, making sure I hit my mark on every point of the windup and the line coming into the first bend, then I just hang on from there.
“In the past I’ve been in the bin (vomiting after qualifying), but I’m getting better with dealing with that now.
“So much relies on how you qualify with it being so tight up the top that everybody is giving it their all.
“It takes a fair bit out of you, you need to roll it out on the rollers and generally being the last one off and aiming to qualify fastest it means I’ve got the least amount of rest before the first round starts.”
The early rounds ...
“Generally I’ve got about 20 minutes before the first round, which can be difficult in itself, as you roll off the start line technically you’re still recovering from the qualifying run.
“The first round is a little different to how we’d normally approach it because sometimes you don’t know who your opponent is, you haven’t raced them a lot.
“If it’s around a half-a-second advantage (from qualifying) then I just need to control it and be safe and I should win it.
“It’s when we get in deeper with quarterfinals and even the second round can be tight.
“The first round is knockout, if you lose your heat you’re out of the competition, see you later, in the second round you can get back in through the repechage.”
Finals ...
“From the quarterfinals onwards anybody can win, the top eight you can make a mistake and be punished so it’s really important to know your rider’s strengths and weaknesses.
“Whether they like riding from the front, the back, you can have a rough ballpark idea how they’re going to ride their race, then you come up with a plan to beat them.
“In between races I’m either hopping on the rollers to recover or sitting in the pits going over the tactics for the next race.
“I then shut off a bit, relax and really switch on about 10 minutes before the race.”
The final ...
“There’s a lot more interaction with Gary, it’s the business end of the competition and I’m one of only few athletes still racing.
“After I recover from a round he will come over and let me know where I need to improve and we’ll start talking about ‘reset now and get a plan’.
“On the line I’ve got my race plan locked in and I’m aware that the opponent might try something out of the ordinary off the line.
“I’m not thinking ‘I’m trying to win the race’ but making sure I execute the race plan.”
The aftermath ...
“I had nothing left, that was the deepest I’ve had to go physically and mentally.
“It was the hardest sprint competition I’ve ever done and as soon as I finished that last race I knew I’d lost and my legs were screaming out in pain.
“The mechanic rolled me down the ramp and I went to the rollers to try to jump on, I unclipped and was that exhausted I just sat on my bike a bit out of it.
“I got our support officer to get me a cold towel because I was overheating and really uncomfortable, I was almost hyperventilating and trying not to think about the pain.
“But it’s what elite sport is about, pushing yourself to the limit and being able to perform under that mental stress.
“It’s about staying focused and not making mistakes because if you switch off for a couple of seconds they can take advantage of it.”
DENNIS DUE TO RETURN
WHILE Richie Porte was busy slugging it out with the likes of Alberto Contador and Geraint Thomas to finish on the podium in Paris-Nice, he had to do it without his new teammate Rohan Dennis.
The BMC rider was a late withdrawal as he battled sinusitis however he is expected to recover in time for the Tour of Catalunya which starts on March 21.
Porte meanwhile has done his chances of Rio Olympic selection no harm by rocketing to the top of the WorldTour rankings.
NO GERRO FOR SAN REMO
FORMER winner Simon Gerrans is on standby for Orica-GreenEDGE’s Milan-San Remo team this Saturday but is not expecting to ride.
Gerrans, who won the race in 2012, did not have the 298km Italian Monument on his initial race program and will only come into the squad if there is an injury or illness.
Having had February off racing after a hectic Australian summer, Gerrans has been training hard around his new base in Andorra with the help of Victorian Institute of Sport coach Dave Sanders.
His bigger focus is the Ardennes in April including Liege-Bastogne-Liege which he won in 2014.
“After Cadel’s race I had a bit of down time and went to South Africa for a bit of a building phase, now I’ve been ramping the training up the past couple of weeks getting ready for Catalunya which starts on Monday.
“Davo (Sanders) is here and we’ve done a week and got another week to go, we’ve had a couple of pretty cold days, there is snow on all the peaks.”
QUOTES OF THE WEEK ...
“It came down to legs and I think it was quite a thrilling finale there. We went up Col D’Eze so fast but then we also came down at warp speed.”
- Richie Porte after securing a third-place finish in Paris-Nice on the weekend.
“It all just seems to have clicked for Gracie. She is in great physical shape but she knows where to place herself at the right times in races.”
- Orica-AIS director Gene Bates on Gracie Elvin who finished second and seventh in two 140km races in The Netherlands on the weekend.
“This was my first race of the season and I didn’t expect to win the individual time trial on stage one. Then hold the jersey for so long afterwards was great.”
- Michael Matthews after a solid week at Paris-Nice which sets him up for a big crack at Milan-San Remo this weekend.
TWEET, TWEET ...
Better you stay home & skip the whole season you narrow minded, selfish moron. https://t.co/uwZSY8hxBK
— Matt Brammeier (@Mattbrammeier85) March 13, 2016
— Dimension Data rider Matt Brammeier has a crack at Vincenzo Nibali who was disappointed a stage of Tirreno-Adriatico was cancelled due to bad weather.
Originally published as The Coffee Ride #98, with Reece Homfray
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