Annette Edmondson has credited the "whirlwind" new regime in Australian cycling for paving the way for a dominant Commonwealth Games gold medal ride in the women's team pursuit.
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The talent-stacked team of Edmondson, Ashlee Ankudinoff, Amy Cure and Alexandra Manly made a major statement by beating New Zealand by nearly 10 seconds at Brisbane's Anna Meares Velodrome.
In the event's first Games appearance, the home team clocked four minutes 15.214 seconds - bettering their qualifying time by two seconds - despite going the long way around to overtake the Kiwis on the final lap.
Edmondson hopes it is just the start of the success to come under Cycling Australia's high-performance boss Simon Jones, who was poached from Team Sky last year and has revamped the national program with an eye to Tokyo 2020.
"Simon's been quite a whirlwind," she said.
"He's put in a lot of changes. There were a few questions at the start and he copped a lot of criticism.
"But I think it was time for a change at Cycling Australia.
"We had gone through a whole cycle and not achieved too many (positive) results.
"We had to do something different, so we focused on the Comm Games."
Australia's victory comes two years after three of the current side were involved in a crash just three days out from competing in Rio's Olympics.
The team, who had entered as gold medal fancies, battled through injuries in Rio to manage fifth and have had their sights set on redemption at Tokyo since.
Two-time world champion Rebecca Wiasak and 2016 Olympian Georgia Baker were both left out of the four-woman side, indicating the talent at the disposal of the the squad.
"(They) pushed us all the way and unfortunately didn't get a ride. They're a part of it as much as us," Ankudinoff said.
Canada narrowly beat England in the ride for bronze.
Australian Associated Press
