South Australia.com-AIS riders Matthew Goss and Peter Dawson underwent testing at the Mapei Sports Science Centre in the Northern Italian town of Castellanza today. Mapei, one the team's sponsors, is strongly committed to sports science development and the well-equipped testing facility is only 30 minutes away from the South Australia.com-AIS European headquarters. The other members of the team underwent testing two weeks ago.
Goss, 24, and Dawson, 19, joined the team in Italy this week after a successful campaign at the Track Cycling World Championships in Bordeaux, France, where they were crowned World Champions as members of Australia's gold medal winning teams pursuit line-up. "We like to test the guys at the beginning of the European season to get base line fitness values to compare with future tests throughout the season," said Team Director, Brian Stephens, about the work under the direction of Professor Aldo Sassi. "Matt Goss was impressive with his best ever test result for absolute power output, power to weight ratio and VO2 max. Peter was a little more fatigued in the wake of Bordeaux but we know where he needs to improve.
"It's also interesting to look at their form coming out of the track World Championships because of the track preparation is largely anaerobic, and now they'll be needing more aerobic fitness for road competition."
All team members will undergo testing periodically throughout the season to monitor the impact of training and racing. "The testing also allows us to fine tune the individual rider's programs to ensure they perform at their peak in nominated events," Stephens continued. "All the information is sent back to Canberra where it is logged with the Australian Institute of Sport sports scientists.
"We really value the relationship we have with Mapei and the support they provide for us here in Italy because it means we can continue the work we do at the AIS back in Australia whilst here at our European base."
Australian cycling has been fortunate to have the support of Mapei since the nineties. Cycling Australia/AIS High Performance Program cyclists who have benefited from the facility include a host of now established road cycling professionals such as four time trial World Champion, Michael Rogers (T-Mobile), Allan Davis (Liberty Seguros-Wurth), Scott Davis (T-Mobile), dual Olympic gold medallist, Graham Brown (Rabobank) and 2003 Tour de France sprint champion, Baden Cooke (Unibet).
