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  Strong showing from Alex Edmondson at final round of Revolution Series  
 
  March 19th 2015  
     
  Alex Edmondson burst on to the global stage in 2011 with two Junior World Championship titles in the team pursuit and Madison. Just a year later Edmondson was a member of the five rider Australian men's endurance team at the London Olympic Games.

After missing a ride in the team pursuit at the London Olympics, Edmondson's career has gone to another level since. A maiden senior world title in 2013 in the team pursuit. 2014 saw Edmondson do the pursuit double claiming gold in both the individual and team pursuit.

A Commonwealth Games gold medal and numerous Australia and World Cup titles had Edmondson ready for his fourth senior World Championships. Below Edmondson talks bad luck at the 2015 World Championships and his dominating performance with Miles Scotson in the final round of the Revolution Series.

PelotonWatch: Heading in to the World Championships as a reigning dual World Champion did you feel any extra pressure having won two world titles last year?

Alex Edmondson: To be honest not really. I think the only real pressure I had was my own pressure on myself to want to try and defend the world titles.

PW: In the team pursuit qualifying the crank on Luke's bike broke and then you had a puncture before Mitch came down after clipping your wheel. A lot of bad luck in the space of a few seconds. How did the team deal with it?

AE: Exactly! It was the worst start to a TP you could possibly have. Of course it unsettled us but we just had to try our best to refocus on the job at hand.

PW: You bounced back and went on to claim bronze in the TP in Paris. Not the result you went in looking for. What can the team take away from the result heading towards Rio?

AE: You can't take anything away from a bronze medal at the world championships but when you have things happen like they did in the TP it really makes it hard to deal with. I am all right losing a race if I know I did everything possible to win the race and I got beaten by a better rider on the day but when there is a mechanical or incident I am left wondering a lot of what if's!? I think there is a lot we can take out a lot from the World Champs, which will be in our favour, come RIO 2016.

PW: The track in Paris has long bends with shorter straits than what a lot of people are used to and produced a lot of quick times. How did you find the track?

AE: Exactly, my first impression of the track was, "Holy moley that's bloody huge!!" I loved the track. It had massive steep bends and short straights. For team pursuiting it was awesome. You got such a massive run of the bends.

PW: Heading in what did you know about the Revolution series?

AE: I had only heard great things about the Revolution series. I had heard that it had an amazing atmosphere with huge crowds and to be honest I wasn't let down. It was an almost sold out crowd and really well organised. It's also great how they have the category Hoy Future Stars for the young kids. It was great to see so many juniors with a smile on their faces enjoying track cycling!

PW: You teamed up with Miles Scotson and won all five events. Coming at the end of track season must be happy with your performances?

AE: Yeah, I think we shocked ourselves managing to win all 5 events. Of course when you go to a race meet you want to do the best you can but to be able to do that was amazing, we were both on cloud 9, the rest of the field were no slouches so it made it more meaningful.

PW: The majority of track events on the calendar are designed to allow riders to qualify points for World Cups and World Championships. You often have long periods when the racing might not appear overly exciting to the casual or new fan do you think other events adopting a similar style to Revolution will increase the popularity of track cycling?

AE: Of course! I know in Australia we have a few different track meets during the year but to be honest they have nothing on what I witnessed at Revolution. The crowd that they managed to pull in was crazy. The atmosphere in the velodrome was electric. I will be having a few talks with my coach back home to try and get them to get something like this running back home.

PW: What did you like most about the format and is it something you will look to return to in the future?

AE: I think the main thing was that it wasn't very serious, it was more about just having fun! You didn't have to go into every event with a warm up or be switched on get the best result possible. I love this kind of racing! Of course I will be back at the Revolution that is if the race organisers let me come back!!!


2014 Track National Championships
 
 
       
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