Australian Cycling Academy team focused on nurturing young talent

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The ACA-Ride Sunshine Coast team tucked in on a descent(Image credit: Beardy McBeard)

In 2018, the Australian Cycling Academy Continental team will provide a pathway into the professional ranks of young Australian riders. Created by former professionals Ben Kersten and Matt Wilson, the primarily U23 development team is backed by the University of the Sunshine Coast and Sunshine Coast Council for a minimum of three years. The team will be known as ACA-Ride Sunshine Coast.

"Matt and I spoke about it for years about how we would do a development team if we did one ourselves and everything just came together at once," Kersten told Cyclingnews of the team's genesis. "We decided this might be the perfect opportunity. At the same time, Cycling Australia was going through a crisis and at the time we didn't know what they were going to do. But you could see the road was going to be scaled back and the institutes would be scaled back. It as really the ideal time."

While helping the project, Wilson remains fully committed to his role as a sports director on Orica-Scott with the ACA Kersten's 'baby'. Through his role with the New South Wales Institute of Sport and its now-defunct Continental team in recent years, Kersten knows the depth and quality of the Australian cycling scene as well as anyone. When it came to putting together a roster, Kersten explained it was an easy decision to focus on youth with a number of his NSWIS riders also making the move across to the new team.

"I think that is where the biggest gains can be made for Australian cycling. At grassroots and young level," he said of the focus on development. "The scaling back of the WorldTour Academy team with Cycling Australia meant there was less and less opportunity for good young Australian riders. The only option really was to go into small NRS teams or go by yourself into Europe unless they were the top tier but the top tier is always going to be ok. They will always find spots but it's the second tier of guys who need a few more years."

"The reality is with those second tier guys is that they will have to have a career once cycling finishes," Kersten added. "Even if they do make a career out of cycling, they will probably not be the top earners and able to retire [off cycling]. We wanted to create a model that at the end of their cycling career, the world didn't end. They would have something to fall back on with a job or idea when they stop."

For Kesten and Wilson, the team proposal was built around the university and council and ambition for the region to become "the destination of choice" for high-performance sports. For the duo, the team could only exist with sponsors aligned with their development goals. And in the two major backers, Kersten and Wilson have the foundation for the project that they both hope will lead to long-term success.

"Sustainability of this model is everything. We are looking at this as a ten-year plan," Kersten said. "The council and university have agreed to three years at this stage so there is that stability there for the moment. As far as thinking of Pro-Continental level, that is so far down the track we couldn't really think about now. We want to concentrate on doing this as best as we can and that is about as far as we can see at the moment."

The team will make its race debut at the Australian national championships early-next month in Ballarat and is then aiming for a start at the 2.1 Herald Sun Tour in February. From there, the team is aiming to balance an Australian and Asian racing programme but with his previous experience on the NSWIS squad, Kersten is aware of the race calendar uncertainty at Continental level. Whatever the race schedule, the focus remains squarely on providing opportunities for the riders and ensuring everything is accounted for in their development to pursue their dreams of a professional contract.