World champion Dubier prepares to go up a gear

While Anna Dubier might be the reigning world junior cycling champion, the 17-year-old concedes she’ll enter an entirely different league when she races in next month’s iconic Tour Down Under in South Australia.

Dubier, who returned from last August’s World Junior Cycling championships in the Netherlands with the gold medal for the points race and bronze for the Madison, said it was a thrill to be invited to compete in a Tour Down Under field which includes Canada’s world champion road cyclist, Magdeleine Vallieres.

The New South Wales Institute of Sport (NSWIS) scholarship athlete, who turns 18 later this month, credited her invitation to compete in the 26th Tour Down Under to her earning the coveted Rainbow jersey that is presented to every world champion cyclist.

“ [Being the world champion] means I can be invited to compete in races around the world,” said Dubier. “I’ve been selected to race in the Tour Down Under – and that’s another level altogether.

“I’ll be competing against people whose fulltime job is cycling, and the elite world champion [Vallieres]  will be among them. But like many of the younger riders who’ll be competing it’s really an opportunity for us to learn . . . and a lot of that will be not by asking questions but from watching, and absorbing, all I can.”

The Tour adds yet another chapter to Dubier’s already impressive story. However, while this proud product of Sydney’s western suburbs is described by the likes of Tour de France stage winner and NSWIS Head Coach, Endurance Cycling Daryl Impey as a cyclist with exceptional ‘race craft’, she credits her parent’s genes for providing her with a healthy advantage as an athlete.

“Dad was a champion road and track cyclist in India, while mum was a triathlete who represented Australia at the world championships,” says Dubier of her pedigree before adding Pierre met mum, Jane, during a training session at their local  gym.

And while she’s a demon on two wheels, Dubier  was also a talented runner who enjoyed competing in gut busting 800m and cross country races. Indeed, such was the slightly built teenager’s versatility she was pitted against the state’s best  discus throwers at the NSW junior state athletics championships.

“I was competing against girls who were so much bigger than me,” Dubier recalled. “My cousin threw the discus and hammer, and they got me into it.”

However, it was Pierre, a respected, long-term coach at the Lidcombe-Auburn Cycling Club, who encouraged her to  give the sport a go soon after she turned eight.

And Dubier’s older brother, Andre, who has raced in Europe and is someone who she describes as having played a positive role in her ascent through his wholehearted support, played an unintentional – but important – role in her decision to cycle . . . even though it was through ‘boredom.’  

“I was dragged along to support Andre when he competed in things like the state champs,” said Dubier. “And after getting sick and bored [of watching him race of a weekend] I thought I might as well join him.

“I wouldn’t say I loved cycling at first, but I really enjoyed seeing my friends and it was a great community to be a part of . . . one that has helped shape who I am . But as I grew older, and better, I started winning at local level and I was surprised to learn there was prize money! It wasn’t much – $20 for some races – but it helped make it even more interesting.”

Her selection for the  NSW team for the ultimately ill-fated National Championships in 2021 – doomed because they were cancelled due to the COVID pandemic – was the catalyst for Dubier to choose between remaining in athletics or committing to cycling up a storm.

“I had to choose which sport I wanted because I knew there could be no half measures,” said Dubier, photographed above with The Hon. Steve Kamper MP, the NSW Minister for Sport at the 2023 launch of the NSWIS/RAS Pursu32+ pilot program.

“So, in the end I decided to fully commit to cycling. And travelling to different towns to race, exploring new places on two wheels … those early experiences made me want to take cycling as far as I could.”

Dubier’s was rewarded for her decision. By her 15th birthday the teenager who loves travelling had already competed in Malaysia for the Australian Junior Development Team and then to Belgium where she competed for a Perth-based team. This year, one in which she juggled her Higher School Certificate studies, Dubier seized the national title, the Oceania title and then her headline-making world crown.

“Winning the world title still feels surreal,” she said. “When I crossed the line, I thought, ‘I did it!’ I wanted to soak up every second.”

According to Impey, a South African Olympian who twice won the Tour Down Under, Dubier is an athlete who tends to makes her coach ‘think’.

“She’s very smart on the bike, that’s her strength,” said Impey. “Anna’s real strength is her race craft, the way she rode [at the world championships] the smarts . . .  the way she carried herself . . .  especially after the disappointment she would’ve felt in coming in the team pursuit and narrowly missing out on a medal highlights her character.

“She loves to challenge me as a coach by asking hard questions, which is something I like. Anna wants to understand. She’s very engaging, wanting to know why we’re doing something. That keeps me on my toes.”

And like all of cycling’s great cyclists, Dubier is also a strategist. When asked of her Olympic aspirations the 2025 Junior World Champion is looking at the long term.

“The 2028 Games  is a tough call, but Brisbane, 2032 – and in front of a cheering home crowd – I think, is very doable – as is the World Championships. I’ll just make sure I do everything I can to be there.”

Daniel Lane, NSWIS