Success On The High Road To Glory
The Sunday Age
Sunday January 23, 2000
THE path to world-class sporting achievement often stems from the smallest of steps, or the most innocuous of beginnings. In the case of cyclist Michael Rogers, it began with very special wheels at the age of seven.
His father, Ian, had sparked his young son's interest when he bought a bicycle on which to ride to work, even trying his feet at some local races in New South Wales in which, Rogers recalled, his father received ``a bit of a butt kicking".
When Rogers received a bicycle of his own soon afterwards, he was so small as a boy that he had to have special wheels fitted to it. Yet 13 years later, now much taller and on a much larger bicycle, the young man from Canberra is pedalling towards a professional future that has the potential for great success marked all over it.
Success is something Rogers is not a stranger to, whether in the deeds of his family - of his two brothers, Peter is a professional cyclist with a German team and Deane is a former junior world champion in the sport, now retired - or in his own additions to the accolades of the family name.
Even though he turned 20 only in December last year, many of the rewards so far for Rogers, in what is already a highly decorated career, have come from the track. He made the major switch to road cycling early last year. Among the credits he can recite are two junior world track championship titles, two Commonwealth track gold medals at Kuala Lumpur, and a silver medal in the individual time trial at the under-23 world road championships last year.
But the track was an avenue Rogers had soon exhausted, and sought a new experience in which he was challenged by factors outside his control, but backed that desire with pragmatism for the future.
``After the Commonwealth Games I made my move ... (in) the track, I'd done what I'd set out to do and was looking for new goals and it was a career move. There's limited money in track cycling. In road, the sky's the limit," said Rogers.
``I'm still to experience trying to race in the snow. That's where road cycling is so good, it can be affected by so many things: the weather, a crash, a puncture."
To the gold and silver medals that have adorned him, Rogers this week added the most famous color in road cycling, yellow, at the Tour Down Under, when he won the second stage and wore the yellow jersey of overall leadership for two days. When his brother Deane first heard the news of this latest achievement, having already ridden a 100-kilometre training ride that day, he was inspired to go out on his bike again.
Rogers' move to the road last year, said national road coach Shayne Bannon, was a task in perseverance during his initial three months: to adjust from track to road, to drop his weight, to become used to road tactics and develop his strength. The intensity of track served him well and provided a significant base.
``The thing I like about Michael is that although he was getting a hiding in the first three months, it didn't faze him because we kept saying to him that it's not going to happen overnight, it's a long gradual process, maybe six months, maybe a year, maybe two years," said Bannon.
``But to Michael's credit he kept at it, and by June or July he was really enjoying racing and starting to finish in the main groups and then he got a silver medal at the world championships, so that really helped his confidence and he's been noticed by some fairly big teams, so Michael now has a clear direction of where he is going."
The professional direction is that of Mapei, the world's No.1 ranked team. Rogers is the first Australian to be signed to it and is set to begin his contract with the Italian giant in 2001 as part of its youth development squad, with the emphasis on slowly building him up during the next three years.
The more immediate direction Rogers is heading in is that of Olympic selection, an ``outside chance" for the road time trial, according to Bannon, with final selection in June. There is also a possibility for the teams pursuit on the track, which Rogers himself believed he had a stronger chance of obtaining a spot in. A Sydney gold medal would simply be ``the greatest".
But for now, it was another wave of satisfaction that Rogers has hungrily experienced from his Tour Down Under stage victory and days in the yellow jersey, a totally different experience to the adrenalin of a championship.
© 2000 The Sunday Age