Fourteen under-19 athletes have been selected to represent Australia at the 2026 UCI Junior Track World Championships in Belgium.
The selected ARA Australian Cycling Team will travel to Heusden-Zolder Velodrome in Limburg to race from August 19–23 against the world’s best track cyclists born in 2008 and 2009.
The 14-strong squad is comprised of five endurance men, three endurance women, three sprint men and three sprint women.
AusCycling Director of Pathways, Donna Rae-Szalinski, said selection priorities for the sprint portion of the squad were the team sprint, the team pursuit for endurance men and individual events for the endurance women.
“We are excited about the opportunity for our young pathway cohort to engage with their international peers on the world stage and gain valuable experience in the demands of international competition,” Rae-Szalinski added.
U19 men’s sprint national champion Angus Withington is the sole member of the squad with Junior Track Worlds experience after racing at last year’s edition in Apeldoorn.
The Canberran is joined by South Australians Mitchell Stephens – one of two first-year U19s in the squad - and Luca Pyatt.
U19 women’s sprint national champion Paige Squire has been selected alongside fellow South Australian April Kat and Canberran Emily Watch.
The South Australians all showed their team sprint pedigree via key roles in their national title winning team sprint squads at TrackNats.
Hopes are high for the men’s endurance quintet, with the highly competitive and talent deep stocks of the age group providing several options for the National Selection Panel.
South Australian duo Will Brown and Oliver Ward were impressive throughout the Australian track season, winning multiple U19 national championships between them, including the Madison title.
Among their rivals has been a hungry pack of Queenslanders, with two of their best in Sam Hilditch – elimination race national champion – and Lachlan Walters – 1km time trial national champion – earning selection.
Victorian Alistair Forsyth rounds out the men’s endurance list. Forsyth notched podium results in the individual pursuit, 1km time trial and team pursuit at TrackNats.
New South Wales’ Elsie Apps and Queenslanders Megan Moore and Sienna Monteith will share responsibility of the endurance women’s individual events.
Apps astonishingly won medals in eight U19 women’s 2026 national championship events, four of which were green-and-gold jerseys in the scratch race, keirin, 1km time trial and Madison.
That junior Madison title was won in December alongside first-year U19 Monteith, who went on to win the omnium national title a day later.
If Apps wasn’t winning at TrackNats last month then it was Moore, with the Brisbane talent having walked off her home track as the new U19 individual pursuit and points race national champion.
ARA Australian Cycling Team
Endurance Men
- Will Brown (Port Adelaide CC/SA)
- Alistair Forsyth (Ballarat and Sebastopol CC/VIC)
- Sam Hilditch (University of Queensland CC/QLD)
- Lachlan Walters (Hamilton Wheelers CC/QLD)
- Oliver Ward (Norwood CC/SA)
Endurance Women
- Elsie Apps (Goulburn CC/NSW)
- Sienna Monteith (Townsville CC/QLD)
- Megan Moore (Balmoral CC/QLD)
Sprint Men
- Luca Pyatt (South Coast CC/SA)
- Mitchell Stephens (Adelaide Hills CC/SA)
- Angus Withington (Canberra CC/ACT)
Sprint Women
- April Kat (Norwood CC/SA)
- Paige Squire (Norwood CC/SA)
- Emily Watch (Vikings CC/ACT)
Feature image: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com