Cycling: Bayley is the cream of Oceania's crop

Ryan Bayley at the 2004 UCI Track Cycling World Championships. Mark Dadswell / Getty Images

With little fanfare, the world's best track sprint cyclist will slip into Wanganui this week to light up the Oceania Cycling Championships.

Ryan Bayley, who won gold in the sprint and keirin at Athens, will be one of a number of world-class athletes gracing the River City. Others include New Caledonian sprint star Herve Gane, Australians Kathy Watt, Rochelle Gilmore and Anna Meares, and, of course, Sarah Ulmer.

The track champs run from Wednesday to Friday and the two-day road meet starts on Saturday.

If Ulmer was the queen of the track at Athens with her stunning world record and gold medal in the pursuit, two days later Bayley was crowned king with a stunning come-from-behind victory in the sprint final to beat Dutch favourite Theo Bos.

Down 1-0 in the best-of-three final, Bayley beat Bos by the width of a tyre in the middle race before having an easier time of it in the decider as Bos ran out of steam.

He later added the keirin but this was little more than decoration. The sprint title was the one he wanted. The gladiatorial nature of the event, where the protagonists dawdle for a lap while jockeying position before exploding into life as if they were riding Bert Munro's Indian, brings out the best in Bayley.

He will be racing both events in Wanganui and Bayley hopes the championships will provide a better bookend to the year than the Cup on Wheels at Rockhampton did in January.

Speaking to the Herald on Sunday from his Adelaide base, Bayley said: "I had a big crash. I cracked three ribs, cracked my scapula and did a lot of hip damage as well.

"I spent a lot of time off the bike but I'm back into it now and have been training pretty hard for the past six months."

Off the bike and Bayley does not a good combination make. The 23-year-old Perth native is a self-confessed junk-food fan, with fried chicken a particular favourite.

"I spent two months eating and doing PlayStation rehab. I put a bit of weight on, which is probably not a good thing.

"The [fast food] thing is probably not as bad as everyone says but I'm certainly not the type of athlete that eats pasta and salads."

Well, if McDonald's is good enough for Ulmer...

BikeNZ high performance manager Michael Flynn said Bayley was undoubtedly "the top sprint athlete in world cycling". Although the volume of quality cyclists at the championships was relatively small, there could be no complaints about the top-end athletes.

"It will give our coaches a chance to see the athletes in competition with absolute quality," he said.

Bayley represents quality but he nearly didn't represent Australia at the Olympics that have changed his life, though not financially (the flat in Adelaide that sits directly under the flight plan is a testament to that).

When Mark French accused his one-time team-mates of widespread drug use at the AIS in Adelaide, there was some doubt over whether Australia would send a team.

Innocent or not, the whole team was on trial; nobody was spared suspicion. For every cynic it was merely confirmation that cycling was a filthy sport.

Bayley is asked whether there have been bridges rebuilt among the cyclists and with the public since the Olympics?

"We still struggle with the media. With the people who were involved and who were in the wrong, no bridges mended there.

"Some people are looking at us very differently now. Some people see us the same as they did before the Olympics but others have smartened up and realised that one or two bad eggs don't make a dozen.

"But it was a big mental drain. It was really hard. At times we didn't even know if we were going to the Olympics."

Bayley hopes that cycling will win the public's trust back, though he knows he won't be able to convert everyone. Within the sport, though, he's happy that competitors' perspectives of him have changed.

"People in the team see me different. I'm more of a role model trying to help out the younger guys. Before the Olympics I was the younger rider looking up to people like Shane Kelly and Sean Eadie.

"I'm now the person to beat."

It's hard to see that happening this week.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY