Triple Crown Meyer Man of the Madison
WAIS-AIS cyclist Cameron Meyer has collected his third rainbow jersey teaming with Victoria’s Leigh Howard to win the Madison at the UCI Track World Championships in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The pair, who were silver medallists at last year’s World Championships in Poland, traded up for the gold and in the process gave the ‘Cyclones’ their sixth gold medal of the week.
Ironically it was Meyer who stepped in to take Howard’s place in the team pursuit line up that defeated Great Britain for the title but the pair joined forces and displayed extraordinary teamwork and tactics to claim 16 points and a lap in the 50km (200 lap) race in which the teams contested ten intermediate sprints for points.
France and Belgium, were the only other teams to gain a lap having attacked early in the race. France however pipped the Belgians for silver with six points against their rival’s five points.
Meyer, 22, and Howard, 19, are two of Australia’s most talented cyclists both on road and track. Both race with ProTour teams, Meyer is in his second year with Garmin-Transitions while Howard made his debut this year with HTC-Columbia.
But this week it’s been all about flying the flag for Australia and trying to collect the rainbow striped jersey of track World Champion.
“Unbelievable for Australia and for myself,” said Meyer. “I never could have dreamed of this, unbelievable to win three rainbows from three events and to do it with one of my best mates that I’ve been around riding with for years.”
“For him to take his first Madison title when he’s deserved it for so long it was just a great combination tonight, a great ride tonight and it couldn’t have topped off a better championships for me.”
Howard, who rode the team pursuit qualifying round, admits last night was one of mixed emotions after he missed out on selection for the team pursuit final ride.
“Yes it was disappointing but that’s bike riding, the decision was made and it worked out for the best with us taking the team pursuit world title,” said Howard. “I couldn’t have been more happy for one of my best friends (Meyer) to step in and take the rainbow for me. I’ve come in tonight and got the rainbow jersey so couldn’t ask for anything else.”
The Australians changed their tactics of 2009 for this year’s Madison.
“Last year we didn’t really accumulate many points and we took a lap really late whereas this year we looked at it and thought why not accumulate points early, set ourselves up for the sprint and try and take the lap as well,” said Meyer. The duo in fact won sprint two and three and were second on sprint four to set up a nice points stash early in the race.
“We had about 15 points by halfway and still 100 laps to go,” said Meyer. “Then we took the lap and covered all the moves. We did everything right tonight and it proved we were the strongest bike riders out there and it was just an unbelievable feeling.”
Howard agrees the pair’s advance planning played a part in their win.
“We’ve been looking at Madison videos for a fair while and we looked at last year’s, at some attacks and the way they were done,” said Howard. “We did a really good one last year and we did it here again tonight except this time we had some points on the board as and that was the difference between first and second.”
– Cycling Australia