Not All Sunshine and Rainbow Stripes - An Interview with Alex Morgan

By September of Year 12, most 18-year-olds are focussing on exams, university applications and celebrating the end of high school. But Mitcham teenager Alex Morgan had other things on his mind. The 18-year-old cyclist had been selected as part of the Australian team for the UCI Road World Championships in Limburg, Holland, where he would be challenging for the rainbow jersey of the best time triallist in the world under the age of 19.

For someone who has been racing competitively for only four years, Alex acquitted himself well, finishing in a time of 35:47.35, just one second off third place. Just three months earlier Alex had done a similarly close ride, coming in second at the U19 Australian National Road Championships Time Trial by just 3.6 seconds. Though disappointed, Alex feels that these near misses have been amongst the best things that have happened to him in his cycling career. “From them I have learnt many things both physically and mentally,” he says. “They have especially made me hungrier to win than ever.”

But it wasn’t destined to be an easy year, as Alex was hampered by sickness in the latter half of the season. “It was hard both physically and mentally but I was very happy with how I dealt with it and I learnt many things for the years ahead,” he says. It was a setback nonetheless, especially in the lead-up to the Junior Track World Championships in New Zealand during August, where the Australian men’s team would be defending their world title in the team pursuit. With good training times behind them, Alex and his teammates Jack Cummings, Evan Hull, Miles Scotson and Tirian McManus were confident they would retain their rainbow jerseys.

“The belief that we would win was certainly there so I had to really focus hard on not becoming over-confident and complacent because the hard work still needed to be done,” Alex says. But the team were in for a shock after the qualifying round. “We really got a scare when we barely made the final,” Alex recalls. “I believe it was the best thing that could have happened for the team as it made us hungrier to win than ever.”

That hunger would serve Alex well in days to come, as the individual pursuit was held three days later. With his preparation for the IP also disrupted by sickness, he was ‘quite happy’ with his result, coming in third behind Switzerland’s Tom Bohli and New Zealand’s Dylan Kennett to take the bronze medal. “It would have been nice to have gone better in the IP but I rode as well as I could on the day,” he reflects.

“Overall it was a very successful season. Domestically I was very happy with how I rode on both the track and road,” Alex says. “It would have been nice to have gone faster in the Junior World TT and IP.” But he’s certainly not dismissing the effort that he and his team put into their races. “To come home a successful defending Team Pursuit Junior World Champion was pretty special. A 1st, 3rd and 4th in the world still isn’t too bad.”

So, where to next for the young road time triallist and track rider? Alex says that school is still a priority. “I’m currently completing Year 12 over two years so I’m doing two subjects per year, this year the first of the two. It’s not too hard to combine cycling and school as long as you are organised and disciplined,” he explains. “It was definitely hard going away for two months and coming back just before exams but my school, Vermont Secondary College, are fantastic and have got me right back on track.”

But he has big dreams for his cycling career too, focussing on the track and the road time trial in the near future and following the likes of Cameron Meyer and Luke Durbridge into full-time road racing later on. “My goals are to go to the [Glasgow 2014] Commonwealth Games and [Rio 2016] Olympics on the track in the Team Pursuit, and IP if it’s brought back. So the next four years I want to focus on the track and the road time trial, then after the Olympics move onto the road full-time. That’s the ideal plan at the moment,” Alex says.  “We’ll see how it goes!”

The 2012 Fred Icke Memorial Handicap

It began in 1960.  Fred Icke put together the first ‘Wendouree 110’, a 110-mile race around the Ballarat area that started and finished in Wendouree.  When Icke passed away in 1981, the race was renamed the Fred Icke Memorial Handicap and Icke’s friend Wal Smith took over as organiser.  The race route has shifted several times over the 53 year life of the Classic and the 2012 race, now organised by the Ballarat Sebastopol Cycling Club, both starts and finishes 11 kilometres north of Wendouree in the small town of Creswick.

This year’s 133 kilometre route attracted 165 participants for the 44 kilometre loop from Creswick through Smeaton, Newlyn and Allendale.  The three waves of the elite riders left Albert St at 10 minute intervals, the first group hitting the course at 11:30am.  The groups came together during the first lap, and despite the usual attacks and splits in the peloton, the majority of riders were together three hours later as they chased down the lone rider 30 seconds ahead who crossed the finish line in a course record of 2:58:36.

For 17-year-old winner Alex Morgan, today’s race feels like a preview of a big career to come.  Despite being in the middle of completing his VCE, Morgan is already a Junior World Champion on the track, winning the team pursuit with Jack Cummings, Alex Edmondson and Jackson Law in Russia last August.  The dual track/road rider shows no signs of slowing down, either, citing plans to compete at the Australian National Junior Road Championships in Shepparton in June and the UCI Junior Track World Championships in Invercargill, New Zealand, as well as contesting the Junior Time Trial at the UCI Road World Championships in Limburg, Holland, in September.

"I just tried to sprint up the hill on the last climb.  The plan was to go outside of town," he said of the day's race.  "I sat up at one point, but I put the gas on at 10 kilometres to go.  My lead was building - 10 seconds, 20 seconds - and at five kilometres to go I knew I had it."  He described the win as 'unexpected'.  "Last year I was straight out of under-17s.  It all played out well, though."