PARIS, March 1, 2011 – No less than nine defending champions will
line up for Australia at the upcoming world track cycling championships in
Apeldoorn, Netherlands, Cycling Australia announced Tuesday.

Following a painful humbling by Britain at the 2008 Olympic Games,
Australia’s resurgence as a track power continued apace last year when they
topped the medals table at the worlds in Copenhagen.

And with just over a year to go until the London Olympics, the ‘Cyclones’
are hoping some strong performances in the recent World Cup series helps them
keep the momentum going all the way to the March 23-27 competition.

“We’re coming off the back of a strong World Cup campaign where we fielded
both development and elite squads,” said Australia’s National Performance
Director Kevin Tabotta.

“We used the series to chase Olympic qualification points and to ensure we
qualified all the places we needed for the World Championships and now the
team we’re sending to Apeldoorn is the cream of the crop.”

The men’s endurance line-up will be led by Cameron Meyer, who won three
gold medals last year before going on to claim another triple at the
Commonwealth Games.

Jack Bobridge last month clocked a world record time of 4min 10.534sec for
the 4000m in individual pursuit qualifying at the national titles to eclipse
the previous mark set 15 years earlier by Britain’s Chris Boardman riding in
the now banned superman position.

Rohan Dennis rode the third fastest time in history on the same day. The
individual pursuit is no longer an Olympic Games event but remains on the
world championships schedule and is one of the sport’s prestige events.

Anna Meares heads to the Netherlands quietly confident of success after a
solid lead up to the championships.

Meares, whose silver in the sprint was Australia’s only track medal of the
2008 Olympic Games, claimed victory in the sprint at the final round of the
World Cup in Manchester.

To do so she handed a straight heats defeat to 2008 Olympic champion and
British favourite, Victoria Pendleton, in the semi-finals before winning a
third heat decider over China’s Shuang Guo in the gold medal round.

Meares, 27, will head to Apeldoorn “in the best position she’s ever been in
to deliver a sprint medal”, according to Tabotta, and hoping to land her first
world title in the blue riband event.

In Manchester Meares and Kaarle McCulloch joined forces for the first time
this season to win gold in the team sprint. They head to Apeldoorn with their
eyes on a hat-trick having won the event in both 2009 and 2010.

Women’s Sprint Events: Kaarla McCullouch, Anna Meares, and Emily Rosemund

Men’s Sprint Events: Daniel Ellis, Matthew Glaetzer, Jason Niblett, Shane
Perkins and Scott Sunderland

Women’s Endurance Events: Katherine Bates, Amy Cure, Melissa Hopkins, Sarah
Kent and Josephine Tomic (final seleciton to be made by March 9)

Men’s Endurance Events: Jack Bobridge, Rohan Dennis, Luke Durbridge,
Michael Freiburg, Michael Hepburn, Leigh Howard, and Cameron Meyer