World Track Championships - CM

Melbourne, Australia, May 26-30, 2004

Event program and results

Tales from the track

News and gossip from day 4 of the Melbourne World Track Championships

No Athens, so Rousseau to retire

By Karen Forman

Florian Rousseau (France)
Photo ©: Mark Gunter

French track cycling legend Florian Rousseau has told Cyclingnews that he plans to retire from the sport after this year's world championships.

The classy sprint legend was unable to secure a berth for Athens in the talent-heavy French track squad that includes Arnaud Tournant, Laurent Gane and Mickaël Bourgain who combined to win the team sprint gold on Wednesday.

Rousseau is a dual Olympic gold medalist - in addition to several world titles in various sprint disciplines - who'd come to Melbourne in a bid to make it to the Olympic Games.

But he faced stiff competition at this year's track worlds, such as an on-fire Ryan Bayley in the first round, but he recovered to take out the repechage in style by coming around the outside of the competition and winning with his late surge to the line.

But in the second round of sprints, he faced the future - the Netherland's young Theo Bos, the sprinting revelation of the 2004 worlds.

Rousseau fought hard but the young Dutchman sealed his fate with a fluid kick that propelled him ahead to take the win. Rousseau went into another repechage heat, but this time it was the Polish rider Damian Zielinski (Poland) who took the spoils.

Rousseau will join another legend of track cycling, Jens Fiedler, who also plans to retire at the end of this year, but he has made it to Athens and went slightly further in the sprint competition today before being bundled out by Frenchman Laurent Gane.

Cyclingnews will publish a full interview with Rousseau tomorrow.

Day 4 News from the Melbourne World Track Championships

• French track cycling legend Florian Rousseau has told Cyclingnews that he plans to retire from the sport after this year's world championships.The classy sprint legend was unable to secure a berth for Athens in the talent-heavy French track squad that includes Arnaud Tournant, Laurent Gane and Mickaël Bourgain who combined to win the team sprint gold on Wednesday.
• Japanese rider Hiroyuki Inagaki just scraped in to qualify for the first round of the men's world championship sprint today thanks to a little-used UCI rule that requires a draw to be conducted if two riders tie for the final qualification place.
• There's more ways for a cycling-mad guy to get to elite events than by actually racing a bicycle.Ben Kelly from Adelaide is the perfect example. Not quite quick enough on the bike himself to race at international level, he gets his fix by working as a mechanic for the Australian national team when it is on the road.
• Victorian teenager Michael Ford smashed Brad McGee's ten year old under-19 3000m individual pursuit world record at the Australian Championships last month, taking over two seconds off McGee's long standing record with a sensational 3:17.775. Ford was one of the stars of the Aussie titles, claiming gold in the individual pursuit, team pursuit and Madison, and silver in the points race.