The heartbreak of fourth had change into all too a well-recognized a sense for Australia’s Matthew Glaetzer on the Olympic Video games, in any case he had lined up within the bronze medal showdown for the boys’s Staff Dash in London, Rio and Tokyo after which walked away empty-handed each time. Paris, nevertheless, was totally different.
The Australian squad of Glaetzer, Matthew Richardson and Leigh Hoffman lined up at Vélodrome Nationwide de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines to tackle the house city favourites of France, who had beat them to bronze in Tokyo, however this time they turned the tables. Australia claimed bronze and at last Glaetzer had the medal he had fought so onerous for over the past 12 years, clinching it in what is predicted to be his final Olympic Video games.
“After Tokyo, I used to be very near giving the game away, however I caught at it. I imply, clearly overcoming most cancers, a giant harm within the lead as much as Tokyo, after which for our Tokyo preparation to not go nicely, it was fairly robust,” mentioned the 31-year-old who was recognized with thyroid most cancers in 2019. “And elite sport may be fairly brutal when you do not get the outcome that you simply goal for. And I pushed via it and got here to this Olympics with the teammates that I had, and knew we may do one thing nice for Australia.”
After all the dream was to struggle for gold within the Staff Dash, however after the rounds had performed out it was Netherlands and Nice Britain that secured the best to battle for the highest two spots, which meant bronze was the one medal in attain. Although with a primary spherical efficiency of 42.336, Australia knew it must do higher to keep away from lacking out on a medal all-together for a fourth time in a row.
“Leigh and Richo are simply so quick, and so they had been lighting it on fireplace in entrance of me, and I wasn’t fairly there, and I knew that we could not afford to do this once more within the closing and wasn’t keen to danger that,” mentioned Glaetzer after the occasion. “I used to be fairly assured that we may go sooner if we blended it up and to unleash their horsepower within the again finish with some form of an honest first lap that I may do.”
Glaetzer moved to starter duties within the decider, Hoffman turned the second man after which it was Richardson’s flip. The outcome was a bronze medal securing time of 41.597, with the French squad coming in behind with 41.993.
“Very pleased with them to ship that, and us as a staff to to make that decision and to take the chance,” mentioned Glaetzer. “As a result of, yeah, we knew that we weren’t going to depart any query unanswered, and we had been keen to do something to win that medal, and that meant rolling the cube, mixing it up, and it paid off.”
Meaning it doesn’t matter what occurs subsequent within the remaining contests, with Glaetzer additionally on the beginning listing for the Males’s Dash and the Males’s Keirin, he’ll get to stroll away as an Olympic Video games medallist.
“This bronze is sort of a gold to me,” Glaetzer mentioned in an AusCycling launch.
“I’ve lived via quite a lot of heartbreak – in each staff dash Olympic closing, we have been on the shedding facet within the bronze closing,” he mentioned in France. “It has been very robust, however to lastly come out on the winners facet of it was fairly particular.”
