Renowned coach Gus Dawson is excited by the thought of where a number of Dubbo Cycle Club's brightest stars could be in the near future.
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It comes after Tyler Puzicha became the latest Dubbo Cycle Club rider to be selected in an Australian squad.
The Bathurst-based Puzicha, who made the move to the Dubbo club to further develop her cycling, has been named in the national squad for the 2022 UCI Junior Track World Championships in Israel.
With Danny Barber based in Adelaide training regularly with former and current Olympians and national champions, Kurt Eather recently joining him to work alongside the Australian Commonwealth Games squad, and Haylee Fuller riding on tour in Belgium, Puzicha's selection continues a hugely exciting time for the club.
"It's pretty awesome," Dawson said.
"We've had a great run and they're all great kids.
"The whole club is over the moon for her (Puzicha). She's worked very hard."
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Barber is someone Dawson said has the potential to ride for his country at the Olympics in the future and Puzicha's selection proves she is on the same path.
A pure sprinter who has something of an old style due to her sheer power and track tactics, Puzicha will be one of 12 riders representing Australia in Tel Aviv later this year.
"I got a phone call from the coach for the junior team saying congratulations ... I was really excited and then straight away I started thinking about what lay ahead," she said.
"It's going to be an amazing experience going overseas to race, I've never done that before, as well as racing people I've never ever heard of and never seen before, that's going to be really cool. We're lucky to be able to do it.
"I just plan to soak it in, I'm excited to learn a lot when I'm over there, because I know I'm going to, as well as experiencing something completely out of the the normal for me."
A huge amount of effort has gone into earning selection in the national squad, but that work has never been something Puzicha and her family have steered away from.
Making the trip from Bathurst to Dubbo twice a week to train and race was a regular occurrence for roughly three years while in more recent times its been trips to Sydney to work alongside coach and former Olympic cyclist Sean Eadie.
A hugely promising cyclist for a number of years, Puzicha developed into one of the very best riders in the country during her time working with Dawson and Vaughn Eather in Dubbo while the training with Eadie in the past six months has helped her reach a whole new level.
"Sean Eadie is my coach now. I asked him for help because I wasn't seeing any progress, but in the last six months I've made immense progress in my training," Puzicha said.
At the state titles she won goal three gold and then finished first in the time trial at both nationals and the Oceania Championships.
She also added a team sprint gold and a silver in the sprint to her Oceania medal haul.
They were performances the national selectors took note of with Puzicha and Queensland rider Emma Stevens set to contest the sprint events for Australia at the Junior Track World Championships.
Puzicha expects her program for the titles will therefore include the time trial, sprint, keirin and team sprint.
"I wasn't fully at peak at nationals as I had to kind of restart my training again, so I wasn't expecting anything major. But to get picked on the Australian team out of the results I got, it was fantastic," Puzicha said.
"It's not the major gaol, but it's always been a really big goal of mine. Because I'm now last year in the juniors I really wanted to go somewhere, get to the next level if I could, so to get selected was great.
"The major goal is the Olympics and World Championships and the [open] Aus team. But this kind of kicks that into gear and gives me a lot of opportunities."
For now it will be a matter of balancing her Year 12 studies at Scots All Saints College with her training in the build up to worlds.
Puzicha joins the likes of Chris Pascoe, Megan Dunn, Andrew Taylor, Brent Dawson, Trent Asimus and James Lago as riders who have gone on from Dubbo to wear the green and gold.
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