Fourteen under-19 athletes\u00a0have been selected to\u00a0represent\u00a0Australia\u00a0at\u00a0the 2026 UCI Junior Track World Championships in Belgium.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The\u00a0selected\u00a0ARA Australian Cycling Team will travel to\u00a0Heusden-Zolder\u00a0Velodrome in Limburg\u00a0to race\u00a0from August 19\u201323 against the world\u2019s best\u00a0track cyclists born in 2008 and 2009.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 14-strong squad is\u00a0comprised\u00a0of\u00a0five endurance men, three endurance women, three sprint men and three sprint women.\u00a0<\/p>\n
AusCycling Director of Pathways, Donna Rae-Szalinski, said selection priorities for the sprint\u00a0portion\u00a0of the squad\u00a0were\u00a0the\u00a0team sprint, the team pursuit for endurance men and individual events\u00a0for\u00a0the\u00a0endurance women.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are\u00a0excited about\u00a0the opportunity\u00a0for\u00a0our\u00a0young\u00a0pathway cohort\u00a0to\u00a0engage with\u00a0their\u00a0international\u00a0peers on the world stage\u00a0and gain valuable experience\u00a0in\u00a0the demands\u00a0of\u00a0international\u00a0competition,\u201d Rae-Szalinski\u00a0added.\u00a0<\/p>\n
U19 men\u2019s sprint national champion Angus Withington is the sole member of the squad\u00a0with Junior Track Worlds experience\u00a0after\u00a0racing\u00a0at last year\u2019s edition in Apeldoorn.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Canberran is joined by South Australians\u00a0Mitchell Stephens\u00a0\u2013 one of two first-year U19s in the squad –\u00a0and Luca Pyatt.\u00a0<\/p>\n
U19 women\u2019s sprint national champion Paige Squire\u00a0has been selected alongside fellow South Australian April Kat and Canberran Emily Watch.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The South Australians all showed their team sprint\u00a0pedigree\u00a0via\u00a0key\u00a0roles in\u00a0their\u00a0national title winning\u00a0team sprint\u00a0squads\u00a0at\u00a0TrackNats.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hopes are high for the men\u2019s endurance quintet, with the highly competitive and talent deep stocks of the age group\u00a0providing several options\u00a0for the National Selection Panel.<\/p>\n
South Australian duo Will Brown and Oliver Ward\u00a0were\u00a0impressive throughout the\u00a0Australian\u00a0track season, winning multiple\u00a0U19\u00a0national championships between them, including the\u00a0Madison title.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Among their rivals\u00a0has been a hungry pack of Queenslanders, with two of their best in Sam Hilditch\u00a0\u2013 elimination race national champion \u2013\u00a0and Lachlan Walters\u00a0\u2013 1km time trial national champion \u2013\u00a0earning\u00a0selection.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Victorian Alistair\u00a0Forsyth\u00a0rounds out the men\u2019s endurance list. Forsyth\u00a0notched\u00a0podium results in the individual pursuit, 1km time trial and team pursuit at\u00a0TrackNats.\u00a0<\/p>\n
New South\u00a0Wales\u2019\u00a0Elsie Apps\u00a0and Queenslanders\u00a0Megan\u00a0Moore and Sienna Monteith will share\u00a0responsibility of the\u00a0endurance women\u2019s\u00a0individual events.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Apps\u00a0astonishingly\u00a0won\u00a0medals in\u00a0eight\u00a0U19 women\u2019s\u00a02026\u00a0national championship events, four of which were green-and-gold jerseys in the scratch race,\u00a0keirin, 1km time trial and Madison.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That\u00a0junior\u00a0Madison title was won\u00a0in December\u00a0alongside first-year U19 Monteith, who\u00a0went on to win the omnium national title a day later.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If Apps\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0winning at\u00a0TrackNats last month\u00a0then it was Moore,\u00a0with the Brisbane talent\u00a0having walked off her home track as the new\u00a0U19\u00a0individual pursuit and points race national champion.<\/p>\n
ARA Australian Cycling Team\u00a0Endurance Men\u00a0\u00a0Will Brown (Port Adelaide CC\/SA)\u00a0Alistair Forsyth (Ballarat and Sebastopol CC\/VIC)\u00a0Sam Hilditch (University of Queensland CC\/QLD)\u00a0Lachlan Walters (Hamilton Wheelers CC\/QLD)\u00a0Oliver Ward (Norwood CC\/SA)\u00a0Endurance Women\u00a0\u00a0Elsie Apps (Goulburn CC\/NSW)\u00a0Sienna Monteith (Townsville CC\/QLD)\u00a0Megan Moore (Balmoral CC\/QLD)\u00a0Sprint Men\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Luca Pyatt (South Coast CC\/SA)\u00a0Mitchell Stephens (Adelaide Hills\u00a0CC\/SA)\u00a0Angus Withington (Canberra CC\/ACT)\u00a0Sprint Women\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0April Kat (Norwood CC\/SA)\u00a0Paige Squire (Norwood CC\/SA)\u00a0Emily Watch (Vikings CC\/ACT)\u00a0<\/p>\n
Feature image: Alex Whitehead\/SWpix.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fourteen under-19 athletes\u00a0have been selected to\u00a0represent\u00a0Australia\u00a0at\u00a0the 2026 UCI Junior Track World Championships in Belgium.\u00a0 The\u00a0selected\u00a0ARA Australian Cycling Team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-633172","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}