Oliver Bleddyn

Rising star Oliver Bleddyn grew up in Western Australia and began racing bikes as a 12-year-old with Peel District Cycling Club alongside current Australian Cycling Team teammate Conor Leahy.

By 2018, Bleddyn was part of the Western Australian Institute of Sport and began to emerge as one of the best Australian talents in his age-group, winning an Oceania silver medal in the under-19 individual pursuit and an under-19 team pursuit Oceania title with the Australian Cycling Team.

The next year, he finished third in the under-19 individual pursuit national championship at TrackNats and won the under-19 Oceania team pursuit crown once again with the Australian Cycling Team.

Bleddyn missed selection for the Australian Cycling Team at the 2019 UCI Junior Track World Championships and in 2021 he relocated to Adelaide and switched to the South Australian Sports Institute.

In 2021, Bleddyn surprised with a sub 4:20 individual pursuit in qualifying at TrackNats before finishing fourth. He would win his first elite track national championships medal in the scratch race, finishing second.

Bleddyn jumped into the gold-medal final at the 2022 TrackNats, narrowly losing to Leahy, who had earlier broken an 11-year-old national record in qualifying.

A week later, he would wear the Australian Cycling Team kit for the first time as an elite as part of the Oceania championship win for the team pursuit squad.

Again, Bleddyn continued to develop and in 2023 he finished third in the individual pursuit at TrackNats and second in the under-23 time trial at RoadNats.

His first elite national championship was won in the team pursuit with South Australia and in February he ticked off a UCI Track Nations Cup debut in Jakarta with the Australian Cycling Team.

The firsts kept coming later in the year when he was selected to the Australian Cycling Team for the 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships in Glasgow, where he would ride in the first round of the team pursuit and finish seventh in the individual pursuit, breaking the 4:10 marker in 4:09.606.

At the 2024 UCI Track Nations Cup stop in Adelaide, Bleddyn raced in the omnium, paired up with Blake Agnoletto in the Madison and was part of the Australia B team pursuit squad.

A month later he was back in the Australian Cycling Team for the Hong Kong UCI Track Nations Cup round, finishing fourth.

Bleddyn earned selection to his debut Olympic Games at Paris 2024, where he helped power Australia to a famous gold medal in the team pursuit.

In Paris, Bleddyn rode alongside Sam Welsford, Kelland O'Brien and Conor Leahy to set a new world record of 3:40.730 in the first round. In the decider against Great Britain, the quartet executed another excellent race to win gold for Australia for the first time since Athens 2004.