When Alex Edmondson was a starry-eyed teenager dreaming of glory on the velodrome, his idol was Jack Bobridge. On Friday night in Glasgow, the Australian teammate he continues to revere showed exactly why it was a poster of him on the wall.
With a fourth Commonwealth Games gold medal and second here in two days Bobridge, at only 25, has some track record, with his feats in Scotland made all the more impressive by his limited preparation.
A professional road cyclist first and foremost over the past two years he had only linked up with the Australian team a fortnight before Glasgow.
Off contract with his pro team Belkin at the end of the year, juggling the track and the road in the lead-up to the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janiero is a balancing act he will have to soon contemplate, but that is a concern for another day.
For now, Bobridge can soak up his back-to-back double in the team pursuit and 4000 metres individual pursuit, the former secured in Glasgow alongside Edmondson 24 hours earlier and the latter on Friday against him in the final.
His time of 4.19.650 left him nearly five seconds ahead of his junior colleague, who faded late but left the Sir Chris Hoy velodrome with two silver medals collected by the family, with sister Annette Edmondson (3.35.450) second in the women's 3000m individual pursuit behind England's world champion Joanna Rowsell (3.31.615).
Australia also took bronze in the women's pursuit via Amy Cure, and the second night of the meet also yielded a bronze for Kieran Modra and Jason Niblett in the men's para time trial tandem. Peter Lewis, meanwhile, was fourth in the men's sprint, won by New Zealand's Sam Webster 2-1 in a gripping final against England's triple Olympic champion Jason Kenny.
It was the first time since 1966 that Australia had not won the men's sprint.
For Bobridge, it was more proof that his time on the road has done nothing to rein in his speed on the track.
"It's a massive honour for me to come back with the track guys and try and defend my two titles from Delhi, and I'm over the moon to be able to do it," he said.
"For Belkin to release me to come here, it was fantastic of my team to do that, and to step in only off two weeks of training on the boards it's really good for me to look back on and realistically if I spend more time with the guys on the boards there should be more up my sleeve to give."
It is unclear how Bobridge's next two years approaching Rio will pan out. His contract with Belkin ends this year, and while he will turn his attention to his road racing future shortly his success in the team pursuit and now the IP has rammed home to him his priorities ahead of the next Olympics.
"At this point I'm up for contract on the road so I'll focus on that for the rest of the year to sort that out. But the plan will be for sure to spend more time with the guys on the boards," he said.
"To win (the team pursuit) Rio that has to be done. I have to spend more time with them for sure, and more time on the track. That's the way the track is now. I'll work out the best way to do that and hopefully I can settle that over the next few months and organise a way to do it."
Bobridge and world individual pursuit champion Edmondson will spend plenty more time in each other's company in that period, plotting the downfall of Great Britain in Rio, and it's clear that the admiration is mutual.
"Alex is like a brother to me now," Bobridge said. "We raced London together and we're going to be together right through to Rio and hopefully beyond. If he won or I won, it was a win for all of us."
Edmondson added: "Ever since I started cycling I always used to look up to Jack Bobridge. He's always been and still is an idol for me. To come out here and race against him, there's not much more I can do. I left everything out there on the boards.
"It's Jack's night tonight. He just showed his pure class."
