TrackNats24: The elite men defending national championships

The 2024 AusCycling Track National Championships are shaping up as another memorable edition of Australia's best track cyclists battling for national glory. Here's the marked men mounting title defences over the coming week.

Watch it all unfold trackside from the best seat in the house at Anna Meares Velodrome in Brisbane from March 1-5.

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Elite Men’s Sprint and Keirin

Matthew Richardson

The Western Australian was flying last year in Brisbane, winning the sprint and keirin national title double for the second time in his career and regaining the jerseys from an absent Matthew Glaetzer (SA). The 24-year-old keirin world championship silver medallist has already shown why he is a genuine medal candidate in the individual events at the Olympics, qualifying first in the sprint at the UCI Track Nations Cup in Adelaide and winning silver, and then dominating at the 2024 Oceania Track Cycling Championships in Cambridge, New Zealand.

Glaetzer is back in 2024 for what could be his swansong TrackNats, but any road to a fairytale national championship ahead of the Olympics will have to go through one of the fastest sprinters in the world over the last two years in Richardson. Other threats to Richardson will come from his ARA Australian Cycling Team teammates Thomas Cornish (NSW) and Leigh Hoffman (SA), with Queenslanders Byron Davies and Ryan Elliott, and New South Welshman Danny Barber not far out of the equation in the medal hunt.

The real dark horse in the men’s sprint and keirin events is Malaysian two-time Olympic medallist Azizulhasni Awang, who is back in some red-hot form ahead of Paris following open-heart surgery in 2022. The Australians saw this first-hand a month ago in Adelaide at the Track Nations Cup, where Awang won gold in the keirin. Naturally, Awang cannot become national champion, but he will be all-in at Anna Meares Velodrome over the next week chasing two wins.

Elite Men’s 1000m Time Trial

Byron Davies

Queensland’s Byron Davies flipped the script from qualifying to the final last year to upset three-time kilo national champion and top qualifier Thomas Cornish in front of an ecstatic hometown crowd. A 59.517 was the winning time for Davies, who in the last 12 months dabbled as a tandem pilot at the 2023 UCI Para-cycling Track World Championships in Glasgow and made his ARA Australian Cycling Team elite debut in the team sprint at the Oceania Championships a fortnight ago.

Cornish has continued to knock time off his kilo personal best since having to settle for silver a year ago, breaking into the 58 seconds bracket twice at the 2023 UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Glasgow, and winning bronze behind teammate Glaetzer in the silver medal spot with a time of 58.798. Glaetzer set the new national record mark that day in qualifying at 58.526.

Davies and Cornish went head-to-head a fortnight ago in New Zealand for the Oceania title, with Cornish qualifying second but going on to win in a time of 59.255 to Davies’ 1:00.445, who raced the kilo on sprint bars. The big question mark is whether both Cornish and Glaetzer will battle Davies for the 1000m TT national championship after a busy start to the year and ahead of the Hong Kong Track Nations Cup a week after TrackNats. Tasmanian Josh Duffy is also a chance and loves taking a swing at the kilo. The 23-year-old beat Davies to the title in 2022.

Elite Men’s Team Sprint

South Australia

Led by a rainbow-adorned Leigh Hoffman joined by James Brister, Maxwell Liebeknecht and Dylan Stanton, South Australia won a doozy of a gold-medal team sprint final in 2023 to send a third team sprint national championship in four years back to Adelaide. Only 0.017 seconds separated South Australia from Queensland’s team of Nathan Graves, Ryan Elliott and Byron Davies in the final, with the lead switching on every one of the three laps.

ARA Australian Cycling Team starter Hoffman and Liebeknecht are the two that will defend that title, with the very handy addition of Matthew Glaetzer waiting in the wings as the third man. Queensland will also have a new starter joining Elliott and Davies in their hunt for a home title, and New South Wales looms as a threat also, led by Thomas Cornish and Danny Barber. Western Australia’s team led by Matthew Richardson could surprise, with the return of two-time world champion and Olympic bronze medallist Shane Perkins from out of retirement setting up a very interesting team sprint showdown on the final day of TrackNats.

Elite Men’s Individual Pursuit

Conor Leahy

Western Australian Conor Leahy is racing for an incredible fifth individual pursuit national championship in a row at the 2024 TrackNats. The national record holder has controlled the men’s individual pursuit since 2020 and set a new national benchmark of 4:07.356 in 2022 at Anna Meares Velodrome during the Oceania Championships, days after knocking over the 11-year-old record at TrackNats. The 24-year-old has battled ARA Australian Cycling Team teammates James Moriarty (QLD) and Oliver Bleddyn (SA) in the two recent editions of TrackNats, but only Moriarty will line up aiming to halt the Leahy dominance.

An Olympic year can always deliver surprises at TrackNats, but Leahy’s most logical threat to the quintuple will be crowd favourite Moriarty.

Elite Men’s Team Pursuit

South Australia

South Australia took the reins of the team pursuit national title in 2023, winning the gold medal final over Western Australia in a time of 3:56.986 to 4:00.085. South Australia won’t defend that title in 2024, with only Wil Holmes and Angus Miller in Brisbane without the trio of Leo Zimmermann, Oliver Bleddyn and Zac Marriage.

That opens the door for a new winner, with Queensland and Western Australia looking the most likely from the provisional start lists.

Oliver Bleddyn and Zac Marriage celebrate the team pursuit win at TrackNats23. Picture: Josh Chadwick/AusCycling

Elite Men’s Points Race

Tyler Tomkinson

Brisbane teenager Tyler Tomkinson was not on the favourites list for last year’s points race national championship, but that didn’t stop him from winning by 14 points ahead of Western Australian John Carter and South Australian Oliver Bleddyn. The now 19-year-old is back to defend his title in 2024, and once again, will race in a strong Queensland unit for the men’s bunch races.

Tyler Tomkinson fed off the energy of a packed Anna Meares Velodrome last year to win a surprise points race national title. Picture: Josh Chadwick/AusCycling

Queensland teammate Liam Walsh is always in the thick of the action in the TrackNats bunch races and is still hunting an elusive elite national championship after several podium finishes and a heartbreaking silver medal at the omnium national championships last December. Victorian Graeme Frislie was the man who beat him that day and should enter as the favourite, however, this title really is wide open from a large group of several talents all vying for selection on the ARA Australian Cycling Team for the Olympics in the team pursuit. Add in two international standard riders from the Czech Republic by the names of Denis Rugovac and Jan Vones and we’re in for a real show on Saturday night.

Elite Men’s Scratch Race

John Carter

John Carter closed out the 2023 TrackNats in Brisbane with a memorable win in the scratch race. The Western Australian was a surprise winner then but has backed up the result over the past 12 months and has been around the Aussie team pursuit camps over recent months, which led to his ARA Australian Cycling team debut at the Oceania Championships.

The situation here is very similar to the points race national championship battle, but more of a lottery as a first past the post after 60 laps. Watch out for Victorian Graeme Frislie, and two-time scratch race national champion Josh Duffy from Tasmania.

John Carter won his first elite national title last year in the scratch race. Picture: Josh Chadwick/AusCycling

Elite Men’s Elimination Race

Graeme Frislie

The elimination race national championship has only been raced twice before as part of the TasCarnivals in December, and both times Victorian Graeme Frislie emerged as the winner. In 2024, the elimination race has been included on the main TrackNats schedule in Brisbane and will be raced as one of the final events on Tuesday afternoon.

Frislie is the clear favourite to three-peat here and has an elite knack for crafty bunch racing. Tasmanian Josh Duffy has always been around the front in the omnium elimination races, as has Liam Walsh from Queensland. Much like the points race and scratch race, the elimination could throw up a surprise winner, but a bigger surprise would be Frislie not being the last man standing.

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Feature picture: (Matthew Richardson at TrackNats23) Josh Chadwick/AusCycling