Men’s Team Sprint Crowned World Champions

Leigh Hoffman, Matthew Richardson, Matthew Glaetzer and NSW Institute of Sport (NSWIS) scholarship holder Thomas Cornish soared to rainbow stripes at Vélodrome de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines in the gold medal final versus the Dutch in a time of 41.600 – the fastest of their three times posted during the session and 0.375 outside of the Netherlands’ 2020 world record.

The quartet are the first Australian team to become world champions in the team sprint since 2012, a team Matthew Glaetzer was a member with Shane Perkins and Scott Sunderland.

“I know how hard it is and it’s been a bit of a drought for us,” Matthew said.

“I knew we had a lot of potential in this team but we were yet to be fully proven and yet to show the world what we are capable of.

“Super proud of the boys today – did a ripper job, every single one of them.

“Time to enjoy this one.”

Australia set the standard from their first ride, shocking the Netherlands by posting the fastest time of 41.896 in qualifying, with Thomas riding third wheel alongside Hoffman and Richardson.

In the gold medal final, it was Leigh who proved to be the catalyst for rainbows, posting a blistering first lap time of 16.949 to Netherlands’ 17.468.

The ‘Matthews’ then hung tough to hold the lead and pip the Dutch with a nail-biting 0.043 seconds margin.

The world championship-winning performance continues a stellar 2022 for the Australian Cycling Team sprint program, which has been buoyed by standout results from them both.

“It felt so surreal to pull on that rainbow jersey on the podium,” Matthew said.

“It didn’t really sink in until I looked down and saw the bands across my chest and the gold medal around my neck.

“We’ve wanted this for so long, you know, it’s been 10 years since Australia has won this title, so, for us it’s really special and I’m just so proud of the boys and what we did today.

“I think for me, the time on the boards today was definitely a surprise.

“I think we were capable of going under that 42-second mark that we said we wanted to at Commonwealth Games, but to go 41.6 and to be within touching distance of that world record is really special.

“It went basically exactly how we set it out in our pre-race strategy, control the first one (qualifying) a little bit more and then bring Matt G in and basically just start ripping some really fast team sprints.

“We just executed perfectly and I think we went beyond what we all thought was possible today.”

The team sprint triumph is the first world championship at the elite level  for Thomas and both Matthews, one the young trio have been eyeing for quite some time.

What stood in their way was the might of the Netherlands, led by Harrie Lavreysen and Jeffrey Hoogland.

“It’s been a big goal of ours for a while to be the ones to finally try and push them (Netherlands),” Thomas said.

“For a while, it sort of seemed they were untouchable, but I think we came together really well, and we have the depth to do it.

“Everything just worked out really well.”

Article courtesy of the AOC