Australia, New Zealand finalize Worlds teams
Cycling Australia and BikeNZ (New Zealand) have both finalized their highly-anticipated lists for the UCI Road World Championships, which are making a rare visit to their neck of the woods.
This year, the road race is held in Geelong, Australia and the time-trial in Melbourne. The host nation’s men’s nine-rider road race team features major some major stars of the cycling season, with Cadel Evans, Simon Gerrans, Matthew Goss, Stuart O’Grady and Michael Rogers as members of the nine-man team, with Rogers and Richie Porte competing in the time trial.
New Zealand, not being one of the top-10 teams in the UCI World Rankings, will be fielding a three-man team of Julian Dean, Hayden Roulston and Greg Henderson, who won the second stage of the Tour of Britain and wore the leader’s jersey into the third stage. Gordon McCauley and Jeremy Vennell will be competing in the time trial for New Zealand.
“It’s exciting that we can go to a world championship with three men who are all now established Pro Tour riders with success under their belt at the highest levels of the sport,” said BikeNZ director Andy Reid. “Both Julian and Hayden had injuries on the Vuelta a España. Julian is fine and has already gone up to his altitude training base and is working very hard on final preparations.”
The women of both nations have been dominating women’s cycling the season, especially in the US and Australia. Cath Cheatley, the USA Cycling NRC champion, is a member of the six-rider New Zealand team led by HTC-Columbia pro Linda Villumsen. Ruth Corset, the Australian road champion, will be leading a seven-rider team including Carla Ryan and Vicki Whitelaw, who were both top finishers in the Tour de l’Ardeche last week, for the host nation. Whitelaw will also compete in the time-trial while the national time-trial champion, Bridie O’Donnell, has chosen to focus entirely on the road race.
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