Cycling Australia has announced the track team to contest the UCI Junior Cycling World Championships staged in Belgium from August 5-13, 2006. The track competition will be contested in Gent from Saturday, August 5-Tuesday, August 8. The road team for events in Belgian Spa-Francorchamps, taking place from Thursday, February 10-Sunday, February 13 will be announced in May.
The team includes a host of gold medallists from the recent Australian Track Cycling Championships in Adelaide, led by 17 year-old Tess Downing, who was crowned Champion of Champions. The Victorian teenager took out the U19 points race title despite crashing midway through the race. She got back on her bike and continued racing but was later taken to hospital suffering concussion. Downing missed the ceremony for gold and her naming as the Champion of Champions for her three individual gold medals in the scratch race, points race and keirin as well as her silver in the individual pursuit.
West Australian Cameron Meyer is back for his second World Championships after scoring four gold medals in Adelaide. He claimed wins in the U19 individual pursuit and teams pursuit and earned the Ride of the Series award for his victory in the points race. Meyer also teamed with his brother Travis, also selected in the team, to pick up the U19 Madison crown.
Scott Sunderland (WA) and Daniel Ellis (ACT) were part of the junior team that claimed bronze in the teams sprint event at the 2005 Junior World Championships in Vienna and hope to improve on that in 2006. Sunderland is also hoping to better the bronze in the kilometre time trial and fourth place in the sprint that he posted in Vienna last year.
Victorian Leigh Howard has also earned a place in the squad in his first year in the junior ranks. The 16 year-old has been a sensation on the Australian wheelrace circuit, upstaging far more experienced rivals with the speed of his finishing sprint. Howard claimed the scratch race crown in Adelaide as well as medals in the teams pursuit, keirin, Madison, individual pursuit and kilometre time trial.
In the women's sprint events Sydney's Kaarle McCulloch's earned selection through gold medal rides in the U19 500m time trial and the sprint in Adelaide.
The full Australian track team for the Junior World Championships
Jack Bobridge (Mt Pleasant, SA - 13.07.1989)
Josephine Butler (Lesmurdie, WA - 23.08.1989)
Byron Davis (Oxenford, QLD - 30.10.1989)
Tess Downing (Warranwood, VIC - 10.05.1988)
Daniel Ellis (Ngunnawal, ACT - 07.10.1988)
Leigh Howard (Geelong, VIC - 18.10.1989)
Hayden Josefski (Boonooroo, QLD - 15.06.1988)
Kaarle McCulloch (Gymea Bay, NSW - 20.01.1988)
Cameron Meyer (Helena Valley, WA - 11.01.1988)
Travis Meyer (Helena Valley, WA - 08.06.1989)
Peta Mullens (Traralgon, VIC - 08.03.1988)
Scott Sunderland (Busselton, WA - 16.03.1988)
