The Roar
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Does Cameron Meyer need a win?

Roar Rookie
28th January, 2015
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Cameron Meyer has announced he is leaving Dimension Data effective immediately. (AP Photo/Keystone, Jean-Christophe Bott)
Roar Rookie
28th January, 2015
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Five years ago Cameron Meyer was one of the bright young stars in the Australian cycling constellation. Unfortunately shooting stars seldom shine the longest and 2015 looms as a year that defines his trajectory.

Will he consolidate as a reliable World Tour competitor, or be scrambling for a place back in Continental ranks?

Almost as soon as he turned a crank in anger, Meyer lit up the cycling world. He was Australian Junior Madison champion in 2005, and then quickly collected seven World and Australian Junior track jerseys in 2006. Pursuits, Madisons and Points races were his domain.

In 2009 Meyer was signed by canny talent scout Jonathan Vaughters to ride for Garmin Slipstream. He continued to excel on the track but increasingly looked toward the the roads of Europe for his future.

Meyer’s next stellar burst of form came in 2010. He won three World Championship jerseys on the track, his first Australian Time Trial on the road, and three golds in the 2010 Commonwealth Games track team in India. Watching that New Delhi points race, even from the comfort of an Australian armchair, it was obvious that Meyer was in a league of his own. The rest of the peloton seemed to circulate the velodrome in slow motion as Meyer confidently racked up points and imperiously lapped the field, not once but three times.

With the results, expectations rose. Commentators and coaches alike nodded their heads at Meyer’s strengths and anointed him to follow in the tyre tracks of Cadel Evans as the next Aussie Grand Tour general classification contender.

Following that script nicely, Meyer won the 2011 Tour Down Under, backed up his National time trial win and continued his winning ways on the track. Little wonder he was one of the first riders snapped up by the fledgling Orica-GreenEDGE squad.

Since then the glow has flickered slightly. Measuring success depends on what your expectations are. If you’ve pegged Meyer as a solid workhorse, with a good engine for time trailing and versatility in lumpy terrain, then you’d give him a tick.

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But if you’ve got the headlines of 2011 still lodged in the back of your mind, you’d be disappointed by his palmarès of the last three years. Yep, there’s the stage win in the 2014 Tour de Suisse. There’s been a couple of stirring team time trial wins in Grand Tours, but otherwise Meyer’s climbing has strictly been on the bike, and hasn’t included enough podium steps.

I wonder how team bosses Shayne Bannon and Matt White see him? If they are still holding onto a dream of Meyer rallying the squad and winning stages in Europe, I suspect there’s a question mark pencilled next to his name on the team sheet – if not a red line in texta.

Cameron has already lost the company of his brother Travis, who was cut from Orica-GreenEDGE after only two years. He is no doubt being given new roles to fulfil in the team – less glorious jobs than he may have been hoping for a couple of years ago. What you and I can’t know is how Meyer works behinds the scenes, back in the bunch where the TV cameras don’t go. If he’s got the grit and the guts to be an invaluable domestique I’m sure his place is secure and the team will prosper.

Early predictions of success are often unrealistic, and the pressure it brings can unduly affect an athlete’s future. If they fail to live up to the hype, some cyclists adjust well to the reality of life back in the pack, but some don’t. It all depends how Cameron Meyer sees Cameron Meyer.

The 2010 Commonwealth Games Points race sticks in my mind for reasons beyond Meyer’s powerful win. The field also included an 18-year-old Simon Yates, who on that steamy night in India crawled home in second-last place, but last year joined Meyer at Orica-GreenEDGE.

Now young Yates is one of the team’s best hopes for GC honours, rather than his senior counterpart. How quickly the wheel turns.

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