The Coffee Ride #36 with Reece Homfray. This week — behind the scenes with the Australian track cycling team
VELODROMES, gyms and open roads in winter can be cold, quiet and lonely places for a cyclist to show up to for work every day.
AUSSIE CYCLING FRESHLY BREWED EVERY WEDNESDAY MORNING, EXCLUSIVE TO ADVERTISER.COM.AU
VELODROMES, gyms and open roads in winter can be cold, quiet and lonely places for a cyclist to show up to for work every day.
When the crowds are gone they are eerily quiet, the training sessions can be never-ending and they can hurt.
But they can also be places of solitude, the same way a thin black line at the bottom of a pool offers silent company to a swimmer.
But this particular Wednesday afternoon in June, it’s cold and dark inside the Adelaide SuperDrome.
It’s just before 2pm on a regulation training day and six of the fastest track cyclists in Australia — including dual Olympic gold medallist Anna Meares — are sitting together in the middle of the track on plastic red chairs, their voices echoing softly in the big empty stadium.
“Would someone put 20 cents in the slot and turn these lights on,” shouts a team official carrying bags up the stairs leading to the inside of the track.
There are six weeks to the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and Meares, Stephanie Morton, Matthew Glaetzer, Pete Lewis, Jacob Schmid and Nathan Hart are fully kitted out in their cycling gear except for their helmets when coach Gary West starts talking.
Two days earlier his riders raced each other on this exact track to book their ticket to Glasgow.
“Firstly congratulations from everyone, coaches and staff, on your selection for the Commonwealth Games, I’m really excited for you,” West says.
“This will be Anna’s fourth games but others like Nathan (Hart), this is his first.
“This guy,” West says pointing at Hart while still looking at everyone else.
“He has the fastest standing-start lap in Australian history. He has been outstanding in the short time he’s been here.”
But then it’s as if West suddenly realises Schmid — the only one of the six riders at training this day who missed out on selection for Glasgow — is sitting there as well.
Schmid shuffles a little awkwardly in his seat but still manages a smile as West looks him in the eye.
“Jacob, your time will come. I trust that,” West says.
By now, the giant white lights on the velodrome roof have warmed up and are slowly bringing the track to life like the sun rising over the horizon, and West claps his hands together.
“Right, let’s go,” he says.
The six riders file on to the boards and pedal in perfect synch to form a blur of black bikes and red-and-blue jerseys.
The silence that engulfed the place 20 minutes ago is replaced by the constant drone of a motorbike which grows louder, then softer, then louder again as it buzzes around the track at the front of the line.
One by one, riders eventually peel off leaving Meares, head bowed and staring intensely at the front wheel of her bike, spinning perilously close (5cm max) to the rear wheel of the motorbike which is being driven by David Short.
Meares gradually gets quicker before West’s booming voice pierces the cold air inside the velodrome.
“YEARRUPPP,” he shouts, which sounds like ‘yeah’ and ‘up’ blended together.
It must also mean ‘go’ because as the motorbike suddenly revs louder, Meares goes from a slow build to flat out before the motorbike swings high up the track and out of the way.
Next up is Nathan Hart, a 21-year-old from Canberra who has only been in Adelaide training with the high performance program for two months.
But he is off to Glasgow and will ride first wheel — also known as the starter — in the team sprint in which Australia is looking to make it back-to-back gold medals although with an entirely different team from Delhi, 2010.
“Right Nathan, head up, chest out, nice and strong,” West barks.
Hart’s cheeks fill with air and his face goes bright red as he stands up and suddenly goes from 0 to 100 per cent effort for one short but painful burst.
Then it’s Lewis, Schmid, Glaetzter and Morton’s turn to get behind the motorbike and Meares, who has recovered from her effort, is the one shouting “up, up up”.
“Remember Steph, be aggressive, chase the bike,” West says.
Standing nearby and watching from the sidelines is a famous name from the same sport but a different era.
Brett Aitken, now 43, spent the best part of 20 years on a velodrome and has not been lost to cycling through his coaching role with the South Australian Sports Institute.
Aitken won a world championship in the team pursuit in 1993 and an Olympic gold medal in the madison in 2000.
“Aren’t you sick of this place?,” I ask him.
“I had a pretty good break for 12 years,” Aitken replies.
“But I’ve got good memories of this track. I won the very first race here in 1993.
“We’d just won the world title and it was a 12-lap scratch race and they brought Danny Clark down.
“We didn’t do much training here with Charlie (Walsh) in those days. Most of our training was on the roads and we only came here for racing.”
For Meares and co, the track session is scheduled to go for three hours but there is a lot of down time in between efforts.
The riders return to the middle of the track, tinker with their bikes by changing wheels and study the schedule that West has sticky-taped to a bike rack.
West, meanwhile, sits alone at a makeshift desk 20m away studying power data and times on a laptop like a nutty professor who you wouldn’t dare interrupt.
But the man known as ‘Westy’ does have a lighter side to him and eventually wanders over to the athletes.
The conversation broaches everything from what you can buy at Big W, to who’s on top of the AFL ladder, how State of Origin game two clashes with a race on Wednesday night and their favourite pizza toppings.
“If we clean up at Comm Games, pizza and beers are on me,” West says.
“What’s clean up?” Meares snaps back.
“I’ll decide that,” West replies and he walks away.
Like most of the population, the working week for the national sprint team begins on a Monday morning — and almost always with a two-hour gym session at Kidman Park.
On this Monday morning the gym is buzzing with athletes from other sports, metal weights clinking together and music over the speakers.
“I like attitude music,” Meares says.
“Pink, Foo Fighters ... I also like country music but that normally gets vetoed by the group.
“Once we caught the beach volleyball boys in here playing Aqua and that was interesting.
“Dan (Ellis) brings in AC/DC, Matty Glaetzer enjoys electronic dance and Nathan Hart is right into his hip-hop and rap so it’s a good mix.”
This is Meares’ biggest week in the gym in terms of volume and intensity ahead of the Glasgow Games and not surprisingly mid-session the sweat and fatigue starts to show.
As she crouches over the bar, poised to throw 90kg into the air, the team’s head strength and conditioning coach Scott Baker walks into her line of sight.
There’s a short pause, Meares leans right down and suddenly the weight is transferred through her torso and into her legs as she stands up.
The motion looks swift and violent but always calculated and controlled.
“Yes, yes, yes,” Baker yells while holding an iPad to video her technique.
“Your power and movement is really good,” he says.
During each lift Meares’ eyes bulge while still maintaining their steely glare and when she sends the weight thundering back into the rubber flooring she leans over as if gasping for air.
It doesn’t always go smoothly.
On one lift, Meares was so aggressive with the bar it hit her on the chin and then thumped into her throat leaving a nasty red mark.
“You’ve got to be aggressive because if you’re not, you’re not going to lift and you could injure yourself,” she says, her eyes starting to water because of the discomfort.
This is the pain and strain you didn’t see when Meares was crying tears of joy after beating arch rival Victoria Pendleton in London in 2012.
All we saw was the green and gold skinsuit flash past the finish line then the two minutes of ecstasy as she circled the velodrome in disbelief.
“You gotta be up for this,” Meares says as she uses a pen to tick one of the boxes on the bright green gym sheet which charts her progress.
“But I love the gym because you can really measure and feel the improvement and I like to feel physically strong and capable.”
Next is a maximum strength test in which Meares stands on an electric mat and pulls up on a locked bar as hard as she can for five seconds which measures how much power she can put through the floor.
Meares grips it and rips it for a PB of the equivalent of more than 400kg in force.
“For context, you get on and have a go,” Baker tells me.
So I did — and also recorded a PB.
“You weigh more than Anna but she puts out double the power,” Baker says with a smile but without looking up from his computer.
Yeah, and Meares has also won two Olympic gold medals.
Last today is the box jump. When the ABC’s Australian Story program aired its two-part documentary on Meares in 2013, this was the one activity that everyone wanted to talk about afterwards.
Wearing shin guards that look more like cricket pads, Meares bends slightly then in one explosive movement launches 1m into the air and on to a step.
“Anna can say ‘I can dead lift this and squat that’ and people will say ‘that’s really heavy’ but when they see the box jump they say ‘wow’ because they can visualise it,” Baker said.
Life as a full-time track cyclist can be mundane, especially for the sprinters who spend minimal time on the roads cruising along the coast or through the hills like their long-distance counterparts.
Instead it’s gym, velodrome, recover, repeat.
That’s why for many of them it’s important they have an outlet away from cycling.
Shane Perkins — who has been going to Japan to race their international keirin series for the past three years — loves his golf. For others it’s Xbox or movie marathons.
Meares has done radio work, is pretty handy with a paintbrush and an avid gardener but most of her spare time at the moment is planning and executing a fundraiser for the Little Heroes Foundation which culminates with her shaving her head after Glasgow.
Matt Glaetzer, who is almost 10 years younger than Meares, is in his second year of studying human movement at UniSA in the city.
He’s in the classroom on Monday and Wednesday mornings and on Wednesday nights he leads a youth program at his Influencers Church at Paradise.
“With uni I am definitely thinking about my post-cycling career,” Glaetzer said.
“And it’s (human movement) a great course to lead into different health professions because I’m looking at physiotherapy which is a two-year post grad after this.
“Cycling is the focus for now but it’s nice to go to uni and give the brain something else to think about.”
It’s widely considered that having something outside of their chosen sport provides an athlete with balance and can boost the longevity of their career.
Next month, Meares will equal Kathy Watt’s record for the most number of Commonwealth Games (four) by an Australian female cyclist.
For now, that’s all she is focused on and beyond that, Rio 2016 and no further.
Yet as she was wheeled out for a press conference last week, the question of Gold Coast 2018 reared its head.
“My coach is edging me towards five in Gold Coast but I don’t know. I’m just really happy I’ve made four and like I said that’s a record for an Australian female cyclist,” she said.
“I would have to see later down the track if that’s on the cards.
“It’s very tempting. I came from Queensland, it would be very nice to go out in Queensland. But it’s a lot of commitment as well, so my focus is these Games in Glasgow, ultimately Rio in 2016 and I’ll make the call after then.
“I’m going to put my best foot forward (in Glasgow), enjoy the competition and the challenge and I feel really ready for it.”
WHO’S SPRINTING TO GLASGOW
ANNA MEARES
Age: 30
From: Rockhampton, QLD
Bio: Dual Olympic gold medallist and 10-time world champion, Meares is the most successful female track cyclist in history.
“The Commonwealth Games is always really special for me, any chance I get to wear the green and gold and represent Australia and bring people into our sport. People who have never seen track cycling before, this is a great platform for us to bring them into it so I’m excited.”
STEPHANIE MORTON
Age: 23
From: Adelaide, SA
Bio: 2012 Paralympic gold medallist as a pilot rider who then made a successful transition to the able-bodied program where she has become a national champion.
“It’s a bit of a dream come true. You always want to make a Comm Games or Olympic team so it’s exciting. As long as I can pull out a good race on the day I’ll be happy, and if that means a podium that’s awesome and if not I’ll look to get a good race and use that form to go through the world cup season.”
MATTHEW GLAETZER
Age: 21
From: Adelaide, SA
Bio: Two-time junior world champion who became a senior world champion in the team sprint two years later as well as a London Olympian and this year set the national record in the 1km time trial.
“I’m very excited to see what it’s going to be like in Glasgow and to be a part of such a great team. Having experienced an Olympic atmosphere, I’m used to the environment where there are other sports going on. We’re are very used to just being alone at world titles and world cups, so being around other sports in London is definitely going to help coming into these Games.”
PETER LEWIS
Age: 24
From: Newcastle, NSW
Bio: Former Oceania sprint champion who made Australia’s team for the Mexico world cup last season and set to ride the sprint in Glasgow.
“It’s my first Commonwealth Games team — first team other than a world cup, actually — so I’m very excited. As the season went on I got more confidence and when the trials came last week I had good form.”
SHANE PERKINS
Age: 27
From: Melbourne, VIC
Bio: Keirin world champion in 2011 and team sprint world champion in 2012 in which he also won a bronze medal at the London Olympics in the sprint.
Currently racing in Japan.
NATHAN HART
Age: 21
From: Canberra, ACT
Bio: Booked his ticket to Glasgow with an outstanding performance in the selection trials in Adelaide. Last year won a world cup bronze medal in Mexico in a team sprint Australian record.
“I’m extremely excited. this will be my second Australian team, first team was a world cup last year. It’s all taken off pretty quickly and to be selected for a Commonwealth Games team is obviously a little bit of a step up but I look forward to the opportunity of representing Australia. I’ve been down here (Adelaide) for a couple of months training with the Cycling Australia high performance unit and everything has really taken off and I’ve hit some good form so I’m looking forward to the future.”
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Originally published as The Coffee Ride #36 with Reece Homfray. This week — behind the scenes with the Australian track cycling team
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