Two years after he won the Australian road race championship, Travis Meyer will return to the event at the weekend determined that either he or another GreenEdge rider will come away from the race wearing the white, green and gold jersey.
A total of seventeen riders from the team will be eligible to take part in Sunday’s Mars Cycling Australia national road race championship in Buninyong. It will have by far the biggest representation of pro competitors in the 163.2 kilometre event, and while Meyer warns that there are a lot of outsiders who could put the team under pressure, he also recognises that the strength in depth makes things very promising.
“On Sunday it is going to be a pretty interesting race, and I think tactics can come into it a lot more now with GreenEdge having a lot more riders,” he told his brother Cameron Meyer in a video interview on the latter’s Facebook page.
“I can see the possibility of a big group going early, with numerous GreenEdge riders in it. There are a lot of good favourites in there…Gerro [Simon Gerrans] was looking pretty good in training camp, I think Stuart O’Grady will go well around there, I have heard Cookie [Baden Cooke] is flying. Cameron Meyer is going pretty well as well.
“I think it will be a pretty interesting race, and from our point of view, I hope I can go pretty well. I think a lot of tactics will be played out on Sunday.”
Seven previous road race champions will take part in the race; of those, five will be GreenEdge riders. Those hoping to recapture the distinctive jersey include Robbie McEwen, the winner ten years ago, his successor Stuart O’Grady, 2004 champion Matt Wilson and Meyer, who succeeded two years ago. Also present will be last year’s winner, Jack Bobridge.
It’s a very impressive lineup, but Meyer knows that other teams could simply refuse to work, thus lumping GreenEdge with the task of controlling the race and chasing moves. He lists others who he believes could also win.
“Rabobank has a pretty good team. I for one always thought Michael Matthews was a big favourite around that circuit, he has a good climb on him and a good sprint,” he said. “Also Nathan Haas is going pretty well.
“There are numerous riders…Sky have got a really good team…they have got Rogers, Porte, CJ Sutton goes pretty well around here too.”