Cycling Australia

Background

Since the late 90’s, the Australian Elite Mens Road team has climbed up the UCI Nations rankings to now place consistently inside the top 5 Nations overall at the end of each year. This ranking places Australia in the same league as traditional World cycling powers Italy, Germany, Belgium and Spain who all possess much larger membership bases and competitive talent pools. Many of the Australian cyclists delivered to the best pro teams in the World are not just team members – but valued team leaders.

The current honour roll for Australian road cycling includes super-talents Robbie McEwen, Stuart O’Grady, Bradley McGee, Cadel Evans, Luke Roberts, Michael Rogers and Alan Davis. Many of Australian athletes also transfer across to the National track endurance program to help Australia deliver Olympic and World Championship gold medals. This fact really does set Australiaapart from the rest of the World's Cycling nations. No other country produces as many top level athletes that are truly World Class in both track and road disciplines. Graeme Brown, Brett Lancaster, Luke Roberts and Bradley McGee were on the track to ride the final of the 2004 Olympic Teams Pursuit final, winning Gold. Stuart O’Grady paired up with Graham Brown to win gold in the Olympic Madison in 2004. All these track riders feature as important players in their respective UCI Pro-Tour teams.

The most prolific Australian road cyclist of the modern era is sprinter Robbie McEwen. Robbie has claimed numerous stage wins over the years in all three grand tours, three green jerseys at the Tour de France so far and a World Championship silver medal in 2002.

Michael Rogers started his career on the track and represented Australia at the highest level before focussing full time on his road career. Rogers won three consecutive World Individual Time Trial Championships (2003 – 2005) and placed inside the top 10 of the general classification in the 2006 Tour de France.

The 2006 Tour de France saw the confirmation of Australia’s leading general classification talent for the big tours in Cadel Evans. Cadel has already equalled the best result by an Australian in a Tour de France during the modern era with 5th place overall, equalling the performance achieved twice by Phil Anderson in the 80’s. In 2007 and 2008 he eclipsed that mark by finishing in second place overall.

U23 Men's Development Program

In 1997, the Australian Institute of Sport U23 mens road program was initiated, an off shoot from the original AIS mens road cycling program which commenced operating in the early 90's under Road Coach Heiko Salzwedel.  U23 Coach Brian Stephens along with National Performance Director Shayne Bannan have now developed a racing and training environment based almost full-time in Europe for up and coming Australian road talent. The program has been hugely successful with a number of graduates securing professionals careers and World Championship medals. In 2006 the program was developed into a UCI continental road team called SouthAustralia.com-AIS to allow Australian cycling to extend its ability to produce super road and track endurance cycling talent for years to come. All but a handful of Australian road cyclists at the top level have been part of the AIS road program during the early stages of their careers.

Today, SouthAustralia.com-AIS is based for the majority of the season in Varese, Italy. The European and domestic based teams provide the foundation of the male endurance cycling preparation system for Australia. State Institutes, the National Junior programs and the National U21 program all have been structured to support and feed this team. The European training base for cycling is set up to provide athletes with competition access, lodging, coaching, support services and medical assistance so that athletes can achieve their potential.

For more information contact Elsa Lepore