Friday, 12 April 2019:
The Australian track cycling team appears prepared to not enter the men's team sprint at the Tokyo Olympics.
Cycling Australia has announced that sprinters Jacob Schmid and Patrick Constable are out of the track team, less than 500 days before next year's Olympics.
No riders have replaced them, leaving Matthew Glaetzer and Nathan Hart as the only men's sprinters in the lineup.
It is a major selection call, given the men's team sprint is a three-rider event.
Australia has not won an Olympic medal in the event since bronze at the 2000 Games, with a successions of fourth placings since.
No Australian trio has won a senior world championships medal in the men's event since gold seven years ago in Melbourne.
The last time Australia did not enter an Olympic cycling event in track, road, mountain bike or BMX was when it failed to quality in the men's madison on the track for the disastrous 2008 Beijing campaign.
Since taking over as national performance manager after Australian cycling's barren Rio Games campaign, Simon Jones has stressed that the priority will be events where they are medal contenders.
Australia won six gold medals at this year's world track championships, joining The Netherlands at the top of the medal tally, and it will again be a key focus for the Australian Olympic team next year in Tokyo.
If Australian does not enter the men's team sprint at the Tokyo Games, Glaetzer and Hart would focus on the match sprint and the keirin events.
It is also possible that one of podium potential, or development-level, sprinters forces his way into the Tokyo selection mix.
It is far from the first eyebrow-raising selection move under the Jones regime.
Women's road cycling was in uproar when two spots were not filled for the 2017 world championships team.
Chloe Hosking and Rachel Neylan subsequently won appeals and were added to the lineup.
