Bayley Set For Showdown

The Age

Saturday December 3, 2005

By MARTIN BLAKE, With AAP

AUSTRALIA'S dual Olympic track cycling champion Ryan Bayley goes head-to-head against one of his arch-rivals, the German world champion Rene Wolff, at Vodafone Arena tonight.

Bayley and Wolff have been thrown together by Cyclists International for a sprint match race as part of the program for the Melbourne Cup on Wheels. They will race a best-of-three format, as they did in Sydney last weekend, where Bayley won 2-1.

Wolff, 27, is the world sprint champion and Bayley won gold in the three-man Olympic sprint and keirin races at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. The German won the world title in Los Angeles this year after Bayley, his main rival, could not compete because of injury. The Australian is fresh from having won the Oceania sprint championship in New Zealand this week.

Both men will back up in the feature race, the 2000-metre Melbourne Cup on Wheels, in a handicap format. Bayley is off scratch and Wolff off 40 metres.

? Olympic cycling champion Sara Carrigan will take a long break after the Melbourne Commonwealth Games to recharge her energies for the Beijing Olympics.

"My major goal for next year will be the Commonwealth Games, after which I will take a break, stay home and engage in full-time study," she said. "(I will use the time) to refocus and reset my goals and ambitions for 2007 and 2008." -- With AAP

© 2005 The Age

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