STUTTGART, Germany, 31 July 2003 — Australia’s hopes of keeping the individual pursuit title were kept alive by Luke Roberts here at the world track cycling championships yesterday.
However national track coach Shane Bannan could not deny that the blistering time of Britain’s Bradley Wiggins was “impressive”.
In the enforced absence of Australia’s reigning pursuit champion Brad McGee — who led all the way through qualifying last year in Copenhagen — Bannan watched as Wiggins almost hit the 56kph mark on his way to a time of 4min 17.34sec.
Roberts was the fastest of the two Australian riders to qualify, in 4:21.82, the second fastest of the session, to beat Volodymyr Dyudya of the Ukraine.
Mark Jamieson, who is making the step up to the seniors this year, also qualified for today’s first round of four heats from which the fastest two winners dispute the gold medal.
Jamieson clocked 4:26.12 to beat Italian Stefano Marenco and despite Wiggins setting an impressive benchmark Bannan said he still had big hopes for his riders.
Australia stole the show in Denmark last year by winning four gold medals, Britain won two, France one and Germany, the other big track nation, none.
And although Bannan admits that a no-show this week just wouldn’t be acceptable, he said the main goal — as with most countries competing here — was to finetune preparations for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. “We don’t have a target as such but I’d be lying if I said we wouldn’t be disappointed if we didn’t get some gold medals,” Bannan added.
In today’s four heats the Aussie duo will line up against each other in heat three where only the fastest times count.
Wiggins said his progression, which is being closely watched by the last Briton to win the title — world record holder Chris Boardman — has been given a helping hand from the Aussie camp.
“I knew I had the ability to do this,” said Wiggins who was fifth last year.
“But my time on the road has helped me a lot. I did the Giro this year and riding in the mountains helped me increase my tolerance for suffering,” added Wiggins, who rides for the same Fdjeux.com team as McGee.
“That’s one of the things Brad (McGee) told me — ‘unless you do a three-week race you won’t know what it’s like to suffer on a bike’. And I think that has helped me prepare mentally.”
