Glasgow 2014: Anna Meares not ready to pass baton to Stephanie Morton

THE veteran must now chase her roommate to Rio.

Anna Meares, left, was runner-up to Stephanie Morton in the women’s sprint final.

EITHER Stephanie Morton is part of the changing of the guard in female sprint cycling in Australia or Anna Meares is not coping with being, well, Anna Meares.

Meares is now the most successful Australian cyclist in Commonwealth Games history — or for the past 84 years.

The track cycling program at the Glasgow Games wrapped up yesterday with the 30-year-old veteran taking a gold in the 500m time trial and a silver in the sprint — behind Morton — for eight medals in total from four Games. She passed both her idol Kathy Watt (seven) and Stuart O’Grady (six).

Age will probably make Scotland Meares’s last Commonwealth Games — she will be 34 by the time Gold Coast rolls around in April 2018. She has said she is not looking beyond the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Meares is a two-time Olympic champion and 10-time world champion, but has she met her match in 23-year-old South Australian Morton?

The coach of both women, Cycling Australia’s sprint guru Gary West, is a man trying to protect his London Olympic sprint champion from stage fright.

As well as losing to Morton this week, Meares was eighth in the sprint at the February world titles, albeit on a short preparation.

“It's pretty clear, we have to continue to work hard, Anna and I,” West said.

“Yes, she's an outstanding athlete and achieved an enormous amount in her career. She wants to achieve more and we're committed to finding ways to make her better.

“We will not give up on that quest to make her better. She is getting better gradually, albeit it's quite a slow process.

“But we have some more work to do — particularly as the defending (Olympic) champion. That's weighing on her currently.

“We need to find ways to skirt that and make her more in control come race day; more complete come race day.”

Meares will not be too worried. She loves someone to chase. Leading up to London it was England’s Victoria Pendleton. Heading to Rio it seems it will be Morton.

There’s a lot to like about Morton. She’s a strong and powerful rider but a humble and determined person — sounds a lot like Meares.

“She's hungry, motivated, she’s enthusiastic, she’s eager for information and knowledge too,” Meares said. “I suppose I was like that too. I was picking Shane Kelly's brain when I was first in the team, Sean Eadie and my sister Kerrie. I just wanted to take anything I could and that is what Steph is doing as well.”

Then there’s the bonus that the two not only train together and push each other, they actually like each other.

“I have had a couple of wins against her but nothing like this — not at a major comp like this,’’ Morton said. “I really had to step up today and prove myself as an athlete.

“Anna and I are really close and we hardly ever talk bikes when we are back at home and out of the velodrome. We have Anna and Steph who are friends off the track, and Anna and Steph who compete against each other. We're really lucky that we can switch on and off like that. We were hanging out all day (day of the sprint final) just as normal ... breakfast, lunch, that is what we try to do when we come to these races — keep a sense of normality. We rode here (to velodrome) and will ride back (to the Village) together.”
They share an apartment in the athletes’ village and even do their laundry together. On the morning of the women’s sprint final, Meares posted a picture on Facebook of two racing suits hanging from an open window with the message: “Stephanie Morton and I might be racing each other for gold tonight, but for the moment we are racing to have our suits dried in time ... #roomies."

The key to beating your best mate is figures, not friendship ­according to Morton.

“You just have to look at it like a stat on a piece of paper and forget who she is — look at my strengths, her strengths, my weaknesses and her weaknesses rather than being a plan to beat Anna,” Morton said.

“I have to look at it more of a tactical way than being hyped up, the fact I am racing Anna Meares, the Olympic champ.”