ARA Australian Cycling Team selected for 2024 UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships

Six athletes have been selected to represent the ARA Australian Cycling Team at the 2024 UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships in Zurich, Switzerland. 

The squad, announced by the AusCycling National Selection Panel today, will race for rainbow jerseys and world championship medals from September 21–29. 

Defending women’s H3 time trial world champion Lauren Parker headlines the team for Zurich. 

The 35-year-old has been dominant in 2024, winning four UCI Para-cycling Road World Cup individual gold medals from four starts across Round 1 in Adelaide and Round 2 in Ostend, Belgium. 

Perennial women’s C4 world championship medallists Emily Petricola and Meg Lemon have also been selected. 

Petricola finished her road campaign in Glasgow, Scotland with two silver medals, while Lemon ended her 2023 UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships strongly by claiming a bronze medal in the road race. 

Alana Forster rounds out the returning members to the team from Glasgow. Forster’s debut world championships for the ARA Australian Cycling Team was one to remember in 2023, winning a track world championship and a time trial silver medal on the road in the women’s C5 classification. 

Forster has stamped her credentials as one of the premier women’s C5 time triallists in the world by winning two gold medals and a silver medal throughout the Para-cycling Road World Cup season.

Those performances lifted the 38-year-old to the overall series win after the final round in Maniago, Italy last month. 

Tahlia Clayton-Goodie and Emma Mickle round out the team as UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships debutants. 

Clayton-Goodie has earned her second national team selection after making her ARA Australian Cycling Team debut on the track in Glasgow last year in the women’s C2 field. 

Mickle has continued to develop domestically and showed that internationally this year by cementing herself as a consistent top-10 finisher in the Para-cycling Road World Cup season. The 31-year-old finished the series fourth overall in the women’s C3 classification. 

Several regular ARA Australian Cycling Team para-cyclists chose not to nominate for selection due to the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games finishing two weeks before the 2024 UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships. 

ARA Australian Cycling Team for the 2024 UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships

• Tahlia Clayton-Goodie – C2 (Geelong and Surf Coast CC) 
• Alana Forster – C5 (Ballarat Sebastopol CC) 
• Meg Lemon – C4 (Port Adelaide CC) 
• Emma Mickle – C3 (Southern Masters CC) 
• Lauren Parker – H3 (Newcastle Hunter CC) 
• Emily Petricola – C4 (St Kilda CC) 

Feature picture: Jean-Baptiste Benavent/UCI