Australia races back to team pursuit summit with Olympic gold

Australian cycling has returned to the summit of the men's team pursuit world after a memorable gold medal winning performance at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Kelland O'Brien, Sam Welsford, Conor Leahy and Oliver Bleddyn fended off a determined challenge from Great Britain in the gold medal final to win in a time of 3:42.067 to Britain's 3:44.394 at Vélodrome National de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines.

The quartet enter the history books as the third Australian men's team pursuit squad to taste gold at the Olympics, joining the triumphant Los Angeles 1984 and Athens 2004 teams.

Australia and Great Britain went blow for blow right up until the final lap of the 4000-metre race, with the green-and-gold juggernaut maintaining a miniscule advantage of 0.18 seconds at the 3000-metre mark.

As the bell lap sounded, their lead was cut to 0.16 seconds, but the Australians looked to be withstanding the pressure, and when Great Britain's Ethan Hayter swung up uncontrollably from the front of the British train after a mistake that pressure became elation.

"I just, I wanted it so bad you know," Welsford said after stepping off the track.

"We aced it all comp and we really wanted to make sure we aced this last round. And that’s the one that’s most important. So for us to get it done today is so special."

"It’s a bit of a blur," O'Brien added.

"I don’t know about these boys but my legs are pretty tired from the last couple of days.

"Obviously, it was quite tight in the end and honestly the Olympic final is unlike anything else, and it sort of exposes everything in every team. And we came up trumps today and the three boys next to me have just executed an absolutely amazing ride."

O'Brien, Welsford, Leahy and Bleddyn were not viewed as outright favourites before the Olympic track cycling program began in Paris, but they quickly established that they were the team to beat after qualifying first on the opening day in a time of 3:42.958 and becoming the fastest Australian team in history, at that point.

On the following day, the ante was well and truly upped after demolishing the world record in a time of 3:40.730 and dispatching Italy, the defending Olympic champions, to the bronze medal final.

That set up a renewal of the biggest rivalry in track cycling, one which they can now look back on as the moment they returned fire to the Brits for both themselves and the entire Australian Cycling Team team pursuit fraternity after heartbreaking Olympic final defeats at London 2012 and Rio 2016.

For the four new Olympic champions, their last three days of dominance was less of an outrageous shock and more of a confirmation of the potential they had been displaying in the Portugal pre-Games training camp.

"I knew in training that we had the numbers where they should be, I knew we were in with a shot and in for the hunt and you dream of it as a kid and when it happens its pretty surreal. It’s awesome," Bleddyn said.

"A lot of strategy was peaking for the games and I think we’ve done that really well, we have a great team here, but we wouldn’t be anything without our coach Tim Decker, a massive thanks to him and to everyone back home," O'Brien said.

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Pictures: Getty Images