Medal flurry boosts cycling stocks
Australia's powerful track cycling squad had a "perfect" lead in to the Athens Olympics at the Melbourne world championships, according to head coach Martin Barras.
A surprise final day world title to 20-year-old Anna Meares, a fourth in the madison and Ryan Bayley's sprint bronze capped off the worlds brilliantly for the host nation.
Australia finished second on the medal table with two golds, two silver and a bronze, just below France's three gold and two silver.
More importantly for the Australian squad, its primary mission of qualifying for berths at the Athens Games came up only one off a full set.
"I'm very pleased, very satisfied - it's 24 out of 25 (Olympic) spots qualified and good results on top of that," Barras said.
"We're spot-on, if anything probably a bit above what our expectations were.
"If this was a world championship-alone year, yeah, with that sort of result, we'd probably like a little bit better than that - although two world champions is a good result.
"As a lead-up to Athens, it's perfect."
Australia's Olympic track team will probably be seven endurance riders and four sprinters for the men, plus three women.
The most intense competition for spots will be in men's endurance - Australia won the 4000m team pursuit world title for the third year in a row with a second-string squad.
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