Cromwell, Sherwell, Bradbury, Frain and Gigante energy Australia’s Gravel World Championships problem

Australia can be entering into the UCI Gravel World Championships in Belgium with a ladies’s squad that boasts a powerful mixture of confirmed gravel expertise and street crossover riders, together with debuting Australian champion Courtney Sherwell, Giro d’Italia stage winner Neve Bradbury and confirmed participant Tiffany Cromwell.

The males’s group will embody the expertise of Nathan Haas, final 12 months’s Australian gravel champion Connor Sens, Freddy Ovett and Oliver Stenning amongst a squad of 9 that can tackle the 181km males’s race from Halle to Leuven on Sunday October 6. Completing the squad is Laurens Black, Tom Chester, Kobe Henderson, Matthew Shepherd and Ben Spenceley. Brendan Johnston, who was mechanically chosen as nationwide champion, opted to not compete.

Selections for the elite males’s group have been dominated by those that gathered qualification via the UCI Gravel World Series however for the ladies’s elite group it was a mix of collection qualification and wild card entries from the nationwide federation, AusCycling. It is a mix that ought to ship a strong squad for the 134km occasion on Saturday October 5.

Cromwell received the European Championships final 12 months, which was run in the identical area and terrain as this 12 months’s World Championship race, and has completed within the high ten of the final two editions of the race for the rainbow jersey. It’s certain to assist that she is that this 12 months additionally racing alongside her Canyon-SRAM teammate Bradbury, who made her energy clear when she stepped as much as the highest step of the rostrum on the brutal Blockhaus stage of the Giro this 12 months. 

Bradbury is lining up for Australia on the Road World Championships this weekend too, as is one other of her quickly to be gravel teammates, Sarah Gigante (AG Insurance-Soudal). Both gained entry via a wildcard whereas the rest of the group gained collection qualification and, in Sherwell’s case computerized qualification as nationwide gravel champion as nicely.

Sherwell is essentially the most off-road focussed of the squad with the rider who final weekend represented her nation on the Marathon Mountain Bike World Championships additionally having swept up numerous key gravel victories at house in addition to clutching two runner-up spots within the Belgian Waffle Ride collection within the US at first of this 12 months. 

The 2022 Australian street champion, Nicole Frain, is one other sturdy addition as she has been making a substantial mark in gravel this 12 months, alongside racing for Hess on the street. Frain took second place at each the Houffa and the Gralloch occasions, due to this fact qualifying via the UCI collection as did the ultimate member of the ladies’s squad, Brianna Samuhel.

Get limitless entry to all of our protection of the 2024 UCI Gravel World Championships – together with breaking information and evaluation reported by our journalists on the bottom from the elite ladies’s and elite males’s occasions because it occurs and extra. Fnd out extra.