Richardson Earns World Championships Selection

Published On: 30 January 2019

Emerging track sprint star Matt Richardson will make his senior World Championship debut at next month’s UCI Track titles in Poland.

Still short of his 20th birthday, Richardson will form part of Australia’s men’s sprint quartet where he will be joined by reigning world champion Matthew Glaetzer and the experienced pairing of Matt Constable and Nathan Hart.

He will be one of three Western Australian members of the senior team, with endurance stars Cam Meyer and Sam Welsford also selected for world championship duty.

Cycling Australia Performance Director Simon Jones said the team would target learning and development in Poland, and use the championships as an opportunity for assessing their Olympic preparations ahead of 2020.

“These World Championships provide a great opportunity to benchmark where we are at against the world’s best.

“However the focus will be about learning rather than winning. As we build towards Tokyo the focus will increasingly be on performance, but performing with aclearstrategy and winning processes.”

The selection news followed closely on the back of a successful campaign at the recent Track World Cup in Hong Kong, where Richardson, Meyer and Welsford were all part of medal winning performances.

Richardson will compete in the team sprint – which is the same event he collected gold in with a youthful Australian line-up in Hong Kong, whilst Welsford will revert his prime focus to that of the team pursuit.

Meyer is chasing a 10th career track world title in Poland and is expected to prioritise the four-event Omnium which is locked-in as one of three endurance events on the Tokyo 2020 Olympic schedule.

Australian Team:

Endurance

Ashlee Ankudinoff

Georgia Baker

Amy Cure

Annette Edmondson

Alexandra Manly

Leigh Howard

Kelland O’Brien

Cameron Meyer

Alexander Porter

Cameron Scott

Samuel Welsford

Sprint

Kaarle McCulloch

Stephanie Morton

Patrick Constable

Matthew Glaetzer

Nathan Hart

Matthew Richardson

The team will finalise preparations in Adelaide before departing Australia on February 20.

-with Cycling Australia (Photo: © Guy Swarbrick/Cycling Australia)