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Strong showing from Alex Edmondson at final round of
Revolution Series |
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March 19th 2015 |
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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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