It was 20 years in the making but the wait was worth it, writes senior correspondent Mike Osborne as the team pursuit propelled their way to victory.
World record one night, Olympic champions the next as Australia’s men’s team pursuit stamped their authority at the Paris velodrome with a revenge victory over Britain in the gold medal race.
It was Australia’s 17th gold medal in Paris and the first win in the men’s team pursuit since Athens 2004, with the gold before that coming 20 years earlier at Los Angeles in 1984.
The Australian team of Oliver Bleddyn, Kelland O’Brien, Sam Welsford and Conor Leahy started slightly behind the British riders over the first kilometre but snatched a narrow lead after 2000m and were never headed.
The winning time of 3m452.067 was slower than the world record the Australians set the night before of 3min40.730, but it was still fast enough to win gold over the unlucky Brits who clocked 3m44.394.
The British team suffered a mechanical malfunction on the final lap, but by then the Australians already had the race in their keeping.
“Honestly it’s all a bit of a blur but it was quite tight in the end,” O’Brien said. “The Olympic final is unlike anything else, but we came up trumps tonight.”
Welsford, who won silver and bronze in this same event at the 2016 Rio and 2021 Tokyo Games respectively, said there was an element of revenge in beating the Brits who took the gold over the Australian at the 2016 Olympics.
“There was definitely a feeling of redemption for me beating the Poms because they got us in Rio,” he said. “I wanted it so bad. We wanted to make sure we aced that last round.
““It is pretty crazy to call ourselves Olympic champions now. We probably did not have these expectations when we started training together. To come together like we did in the last month was pretty special.
“It has been 20 years since Australia won this, so that will sink in (over) the next week.”
Bleddyn said he knew the team had done the work in training and were “in for a shot” while Leahy said he couldn’t believe the result.
“I haven’t processed it yet,” he said. “I’ve worked my arse off to get to this position.”
The British foursome of Ethan Hayter, Daniel Bigham, Charlie Tanfield and Oliver Wood took silver while the Italian team beat Denmark for the bronze.
Australia’s awesome bike foursome follow in the golden slipstream of cycling brothers Graeme Brown, Brett Lancaster, Brad McGee and Luke Roberts who won gold in Athens 2004; and Michael Grenda, Kevin Nichols, Michael Turtur and Dean Woods at the 1984 LA Games.
The team pursuit’s gold took Australia’s total to 17, equalling the most gold medals won by Australia at an Olympics set in Tokyo and Athens 2004.
Michael Osborne has been a journalist for more than four decades including 35 years with the national news agency Australian Associated Press, rising from junior reporter to Editor.
He was AAP Editor for 11 years and served four years as Head of Sport and Racing. He was also posted to London and Beijing as AAP’s Bureau Chief and Foreign Correspondent.
He has worked at six Olympics and five Commonwealth Games, covered tennis grand slams, golf majors, international cricket, rugby world cups and numerous sporting world championships. He also co-ordinated and managed AAP’s teams and coverage at three Olympic Games in Athens 2004, Beijing 2008 and London 2012.
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