Results from Day Ten
Maddison Brooks’ maiden Olympic Games campaign has ended in the quarter-finals after the Hockeyroos lost 3-2 to China.
The Hobart 19-year-old did not feature as the Australian women exited the Paris tournament at the same stage as the men.
Goals from Alice Arnott and Tatum Stewart couldn’t save an Aussie team which had finished unbeaten on top of its pool.
A midfielder with Hobart’s OHA club, Brooks was initially selected as a travelling reserve but was called into the squad when Alice Arnott withdrew with calf soreness. Brooks featured in the 2-1 win over South Africa, scored her seventh international goal in a 3-0 win over the USA and was in the side which drew 3-3 with world no.2 Argentina and then beat Spain 3-1.
Georgia Baker is ready to take on the Paris track
Georgia Baker is facing a daunting workload at the Saint Quentin En Yvelines velodrome south-west of Paris but is happy to be focused purely on the track.
Having enjoyed track and road success at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, the versatile Tasmanian is concentrating entirely on the former across the English Channel.
Expected to be racing eight times across five days, the 29-year-old is determined to make her third Olympic experience a memorable one after frustrating campaigns in Rio and Tokyo.
Baker sat out last week’s road time trial in order to focus on the team pursuit qualifying, round one and final, the madison with Alex Manly and the four elements of the omnium in a bid to end Australian track cycling's 12-year Olympic gold medal drought.
“I think if I did the time trial and all those three it would be way too much,” she said.
“The time trial was nine days before track starts but my priority will always be track. That’s what I’ve been training most for and what I’m most passionate about.
“I’ve worked really hard in madison and team pursuit for so many years so that’s where my focus is. And the omnium as well, it’s an event we haven’t been able to race as much because you need to have so many UCI points to race these events and we lacked that.”
The 2022 Commonwealth Games road race champion competes on the World Tour with Liv AlUla Jayco and is familiar with switching between disciplines.
“I really enjoy mixing it up because it’s a different stimulus. I’ve ridden both road and track for as long as I can remember, always doing both. So for me it’s odd only doing one of those. It’s normal for me to interchange between track and road.
“When I’m on the road a lot I can’t wait to get back on the track. It’s a refresh, a different group of people who are very familiar - it always feels like a family.”
Baker’s program begins with team pursuit qualifying at 1.30am on Wednesday with round one to follow eight hours later and finals the following morning.
The madison final is at 2.09am on Saturday with the omnium’s scratch, tempo, elimination and points races over the course of three hours on the final night of the Games.
The 50km madison holds special significance for Baker who has established a solid team with her Spanish housemate and road teammate Manly.
Australia won a memorable gold medal in the event on home soil at the Sydney Olympics when Scott McGrory and Brett Aitken defeated Baker’s future coach Matthew Gilmore, who was representing Belgium.
“I learned so much from Matt, we’re so lucky to have him in Tassie,” she said.
“The madison is sometimes hard to follow. You’re looking at the race and not sure who’s leading and you’re thinking ‘What’s happening, where am I looking?’ but out on the track it’s not as bad.”
Baker and Manly have been racing the event together for the past three years and won a silver medal at the 2023 UCI Track World Championships. Baker had previously won another silver with fellow Tasmanian Amy Cure in 2019.
"It's cool that we get to race together as best friends. It was just coincidence that we were both really passionate about it and our different strengths and weaknesses make for a really good pairing and balance each other out really well."
“Everything we've been doing this year with our training has been structured around the madison so we will be giving it everything we can to make sure we have the best condition going into it.
"I am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to our preparation, but you have to know things can happen and a spanner can be thrown into the works.
"We've learnt so much from each Olympic cycle and that's all gone into this prep so we know what works for us as a pairing and individuals.”
Baker was part of fifth-place team pursuit finishes at the 2016 and 2020 Olympics and also came seventh in the madison in Tokyo.
"We've fallen short the last few Olympics and it is super frustrating but I really believe in the team we have, the staff, the athletes and the environment,” she added. “That keeps me going, knowing we haven't quite fulfilled our potential and it's exciting."