Eight of Australia's rainbow jersey contenders at the Glasgow Cycling Worlds

The rainbow jersey. Rohan Dennis (pictured) was the last Australian to win an elite category Road World Championships title, taking out the 2018 and 2019 time trial (Image credit: Getty Images Sport)

In a first of its kind multi-discipline UCI Cycling World Championships, there are plenty of rainbow jerseys on offer in 2023 and Australia has a strong contingent of riders to chase them. They range from BMX Freestyle Olympic gold medalist Logan Martin, to Rebecca Henderson in the Mountain Bike XCO, the defending men’s Team Sprint champion’s on the track plus Michael Matthews, Grace Brown and Rohan Dennis to take on the road races and time trials.

Australia will compete in ten of the 13 World Championships being held from August 3 to 13 with 121 athletes, nine of whom are lining up in more than one discipline. There are 84 elite riders, 11 under 23 representatives and 26 juniors, with six defending world champions among them.

Logan Martin has some experience in excelling when it comes to event firsts, winning the initial BMX Freestyle world title in 2017 and also in Tokyo with the very first Olympic gold medal was awarded in the event – perhaps he could also add a rainbow jersey at the first combined cycling championships in Glasgow to that list. The Gold Coast based rider is already the most successful men’s elite rider in the discipline across the five years that the event has had a World Championships, having taken two world titles and a silver medal.

In 2022 when the trio of Leigh Hoffman, Matthew Richardson and Matthew Glaetzer crossed the line at Vélodrome de Saint-Quentin-en-Yveline to beat the powerful Dutch team to the world men's team sprint title they broke a ten-year drought. 2012 was when Australia had last claimed the rainbow bands in the event with a team that Glaetzer was also a part of alongside Shane Perkins and Scott Sunderland..

Michael Matthews knows what it feels like to pull on the rainbow jersey, he did it on home soil when he won the men's U23 road race in 2010. Since then he's been determined to capture it again in the elite category: "It's a dream that I go to sleep and wake up every morning thinking about, that rainbow jersey," said Matthews in a video about his pursuit of the World Championships title. But every year since then he's also had people reminding them that no U23 men's winner has also captured the elite road race title. Matthews is determined to be the first.

Could this be the year that he can fulfil that career goal? After a flying finish to 2022, which included two trips to the podium at his home World Championships in Wollongong, he didn't have the start to 2023 that he had been hoping for but then a win on stage 3 of the Giro d'Italia seemed to breathe new life into the 32 year old. Not riding the Tour de France this year, Matthews turned his focus to a solid block of altitude training in Livigno for the run up to the World Championships, which is being held on a course that should play to his strengths. The rider who has visited every step of the elite men's road race podium at the Road World Championships except the top one will also be surrounded by a strong team for the 271.1km event with 3,570 metres of climbing, the longer ascents coming early before the race heads into a punchy, technical circuit. Still he will not be the only option for the team, which also includes sprinters Caleb Ewan and Kaden Groves plus the proven breakaway prowess of Simon Clarke and Australian champion Luke Plapp.

Rebecca Henderson has already been on a World Championship podium twice, taking third in the cross-country mountain bike race in both 2019 and 2020, though since then she's also stepped up a level in the World Cups, finishing second overall in 2022. The 31 year old, who in February took her tenth Australian cross-country title in a row, hasn't so far in 2023 had a repeat of her stellar 2022 World Cup season but the year looks to be turning around at the perfect time.

Grace Brown made sure she'd be on the favourites list for 2023 when she came fourth in the time trial at the Olympic Games in 2021 and then delivered second at the Wollongong Road World Championships in 2022. Add in a fourth at the final Tour de France Femmes time trial at Pau and Brown has made clear she is a rider to watch closely in the race against the clock. No Australian has ever won the elite women's time trial world title, though a number have been on the podium, including Kathy Watt in 1995, Anna Wilson in 1999, Katrin Garfoot in 2016 and 2017 and finally Brown in 2022. The silver medallist has set her focus squarely on doing everything she can to take make it one step up this year, taking a race break before the Tour de France Femmes to make sure she hasn't gone to deep by the time the World Championships arrive and also spending plenty of hours on the time trial bike in training over recent months.

Still, while there is no doubt the time trial is the top prospect, Brown shouldn't be counted out for the road race either. After all it was Katrin Garfoot who took silver for the nation at the Road World Championships in 2017 four days after securing bronze in the time trial. The road race is a far more unpredictable beast and includes some formidable rivals, including of course the always stacked Dutch team, but the punchy climbs of the technical finishing circuit suit Brown. Plus she has a strong team around her for support and also to reduce the pressure, as it offers a number of cards, including former silver medallist Amanda Spratt who showed she is well and truly back on track after a top ten overall at the Tour de France Femmes.

This is the final Road World Championships for Rohan Dennis, with the 2018 and 2019 winner of the rainbow jersey set to retire at the end of the season. The last time Dennis lined up in the time trial at a Road World Championships was in 2020, when he came fifth, but while it may have been some years since the rider from Adelaide has chased the rainbow bands in that time he has brought home top results for Australia at other key events. Dennis took Commonwealth Games gold in 2022 and bronze at the Olympic Games in 2021.

As far as the time trial results go this season the Jumbo Visma rider was on song at O Gran Camiño in February, when he came second to teammate Jonas Vingegaard. His Giro d'Italia results in the race against the clock, however, were nothing to write home about but he was there as a late call up to support Primož Roglič so his priority would not have been his own results given his task was to leave it all on the road in support of his teammate. The time trial at the Road World Championships, however, is an event that Dennis has outlined as a key target for his final year as a professional cyclist right from the beginning of the season. If his results at the Commonwealth and Olympic Games are anything to go by, it could be one heck of a farewell.

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Simone is a degree-qualified journalist that has accumulated decades of wide-ranging experience while working across a variety of leading media organisations. She joined Cyclingnews as a Production Editor at the start of the 2021 season and has now moved into the role of Australia Editor. Previously she worked as a freelance writer, Australian Editor at Ella CyclingTips and as a correspondent for Reuters and Bloomberg. Cycling was initially purely a leisure pursuit for Simone, who started out as a business journalist, but in 2015 her career focus also shifted to the sport.