Five to be on your #TrackNats22 radar: Men's sprint

24 Mar 2022 | 02:08 PMBy: Josh Davies

Australia's best track cyclists across all age categories will race for the coveted green and gold national champion jerseys across March and April at the Anna Meares Velodrome in Brisbane.

Here are five men chasing gold in the sprint events at #TrackNats22.

Matthew Glaetzer - South Australia

Glaetzer

Matthew Glaetzer has been the headline act of Australian men’s sprinting for close to a decade and will seek to add his 11 elite national championships at #TrackNats22 ahead of the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. The rise of young West Australian Australian Cycling Team teammate Matthew Richardson has presented a new challenge for Glaetzer in the last 12 months, with the internal battle on for supremacy at the top of the pecking order. The 29-year-old is a two-time world champion, a three-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist, and a triple-Olympian.

Matthew Richardson - Western Australia

Richardson

Matthew Richardson is the two-time defending sprint national champion and is leading the charge of the new generation breaking through at the elite level. The West Australian quickly rose through the ranks of the Australian Cycling Team program after joining the inaugural Podium Potential Academy class in late-2018 before making his Olympic Games debut at Tokyo 2020. Richardson was selected to make his elite World Championships debut in 2019 as a teenager and a year later he won bronze in the team sprint with Thomas Cornish and Nathan Hart. It was Australia’s first podium appearance in the event at a World Championships since 2012.

Thomas Cornish - New South Wales

Cornish

Thomas Cornish has been promoted to Australian Cycling Team’s top sprint level in 2022 (Podium Ready) after an impressive 2021. Cornish has long been touted as an elite talent since his junior world championship and world record in the men’s time trial (1000m) at the 2018 UCI Junior Track World Championships. The 22-year-old has won three track national time trial championships on the trot and was front and centre for one of the most memorable moments of #TrackNats21, overturning a 1.4-second deficit to win the team sprint national championship for New South Wales. Cornish won a bronze medal at the 2020 UCI Track Cycling World Championships in the team sprint with Matthew Richardson and Nathan Hart.

Nathan Hart - Australian Capital Territory

Hart

Nathan Hart has been a member of the Australian Cycling Team since 2013, following in the footsteps of his father Braham, a former Australian representative himself. Hart is a former sprint national champion, winning in 2019, which was his maiden elite national championship. The Canberra product has been a dependable, quiet achiever of the Australian Cycling Team over the last decade and has represented Australia at the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in 2014, 15, 16, 17, 19 and 20, the Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 Olympics, and two Commonwealth Games. Hart was a member of the bronze medal-winning Australian team sprint squad at the 2020 UCI Track Cycling World Championships.

Leigh Hoffman - South Australia

Hoffman

Leigh Hoffman is knocking on the door of the Australian Cycling Team top sprint squad after two solid years in the Podium Potential Academy. The Whyalla product was a non-competing reserve member of the Australian Cycling Team’s Olympic squad at Tokyo 2020. Hoffman has one elite national championship to his name to date, winning the team sprint for South Australia with current Podium Potential Academy teammates Carlos Carisimo and James Brister at #TrackNats20. The 21-year-old competed at the 2018 UCI Junior Track World Championships, breaking the Australian flying 200m record en route to finishing fourth in the men’s sprint.

About #TrackNats22

Australia’s best track cyclists in the Elite, Para, plus Under 19, 17 and 15 categories will race for the coveted green and gold national champion jerseys from March 24-30 at the Anna Meares Velodrome in Brisbane.

Riders to Watch!

The 2022 AusCycling Track National Championships is part of the Brisbane Cycling Festival 2022. It is proudly supported by Brisbane City Council, through Brisbane Economic Development Agency and the Queensland Government, through Tourism and Events Queensland, and features on the It’s Live! in Queensland events calendar.

Tickets available at the door or online.

Broadcast/live stream via the AusCycling YouTube channel and SBS Cycling Central's Facebook Page.

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