Commonwealth Games: WA pair Oliver Bleddyn and Conor Leahy lead Australia’s cycling medal rush

After a disastrous start to the medal races, Australia have dominated the Chris Hoy Velodrome to take home another deluge of medals on the penultimate day of Commonwealth Games action.

Headshot of Jake Santa Maria
Jake Santa Maria
The West Australian
Gold medalist Oliver Bleddyn of Team Australia (C), Silver medalist Conor Leahy of Team Australia (L) and Bronze medalist James Moriarty of Team Australia (R) pose on the podium during the Men's 4000M Individual Pursuit Final.
Gold medalist Oliver Bleddyn of Team Australia (C), Silver medalist Conor Leahy of Team Australia (L) and Bronze medalist James Moriarty of Team Australia (R) pose on the podium during the Men's 4000M Individual Pursuit Final. Credit: Adam Pretty/Getty Images

After a disastrous start to the medal races, Australia have dominated the Chris Hoy Velodrome to take home another deluge of medals on the penultimate day of Commonwealth Games action.

Close friends and WA pair Oliver Bleddyn and Conor Leahy led the way, taking gold and silver in the men’s individual pursuit final, with teammate James Moriarty taking bronze in a podium clean sweep.

The Aussies were in ominous form with Moriarty setting a new Games record which lasted less than 10 minutes as Bleddyn lowered the mark by more than a second in his run.

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Leahy split the pair to set up an all-WA final, which Bleddyn took the spoils in, setting a new national record as the trio made up for a disappointing loss in the team pursuit, which saw them edged by England, becoming the first ever nation to sweep the Men’s 4,000m Individual Pursuit.

“Yesterday we were pretty disappointed, but I think that just motivated us for today, and if we can get it right on a team pursuit day, hopefully we can be back on top,” Leahy said.

“It’s unreal to see this guy grow and become the athlete he has. He is the anchor of our team pursuit these days, so to be able to go out there with him is just awesome.”

Bleddyn also relished the chance to go up against Leahy, having raced against him many times at junior levels as they came up together in WA.

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“I knew it would be really tough against Connor; it was going to take everything I had and a little bit more, and I managed to get the better of him,” he said.

“He’s an absolute animal, Conor. I’ll enjoy [the record] while I’ve got it, I’m sure he’ll be ready to take it back as soon as he gets the chance.”

It was one of three gold medals Australia took home on Saturday morning after Georgia Baker took home the gold in the 10km scratch race.

Despite it being an individual event, she benefited from having two other Australians in the field, with Alyssa Polites doing the hard yards after an early move allowing Baker to sprint for the line ahead of Wales’ Anna Morris and New Zealand’s Samantha Donnelly.

It sees Baker join an illustrious group of Anna Mears, Matt Glaetzer and pursuit specialist Brad McGee with five Commonwealth gold medals.

“You know what, just to be alongside that is great,” Baker said. “It’s not something that I’ve been striving for. It’s obviously great to be in that list. Any medal is great.”

Blake Agnoletto took gold in the final event of the night, winning the inaugural men’s elimination race at a Commonwealth Games, defeating local hope Mak Stewart.

Stewart had led for most of the latter stages of the race, but once it got down to the final two riders, Agnoletto stormed away to win by nearly half a lap.

The success came after Felicity Wilson-Haffenden was disqualified from the bronze medal ride-off in the women’s individual pursuit for having too much strapping on her shoulder.

Sophie Edwards was also disqualified after having too much padding in her helmet.

“The UCI concluded the taping of the shoulder constituted, according to them in the rule book, a morphological change,” AusCycling performance manager Jesse Korf told reporters.

“But they weren’t able to articulate what that exactly was, because it’s a grey area - you cannot measure what a morphological change is.

“We looked into it and being that it’s not measurable and subjective, unfortunately that conclusion is final, which we’re most certainly not happy with and Felicity is upset, of course.”

Australian Leigh Hoffman claimed silver in the men’s keiren behind Malaysian veteran Azizul Awang, who took an emotional gold having survived open-heart surgery in 2022 in what will be his final Games.

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