BY DAN

You may not have noticed but on Sunday night Anna Meares won her 11^th World Championship in the Keirin at the World Track Cycling Championships.

If that sounds like a lot it’s because that makes her the second most successful track cyclist of all time. Yes that includes dudes.

Just fucking rad.

Plainly she is Australia’s greatest cyclist ever.

She’s won 26 medals at World Championships, not to mention a couple of gold medals in the Olympics (2004 and 2012). She was the first woman to go under 33 seconds in the Women’s 500m sprint.

Even more impressive, Meares managed to cycle at the Beijing Olympics despite BREAKING HER FUCKING NECK after a horrible accident in the lead up.

She lost out on gold to her arch-rival Victora Pendleton. Meares then went on to beat Pendleton on Victoria’s home turf in the 2012 London Olympics because Anna Meares is a freaking god who walks amongst us.

How amazing is she? As her coach Gary Sutton said Meares is:

…an absolute gem! She’s been an absolute role model for our girls and a role model for the sport to be honest with you. And certainly one of the greats.

She recently donated her hair  to the Little Heroes Foundation, which works to help seriously ill children. And you know what? She’s never been caught supplying cocaine to anyone.

But just how much of a god/role model is Meares? Check out these fucking hops.

POWER

As somewhat of a box jump aficionado I should let you in on some hot tips. Firstly, 110cm is freaking high. It’s even higher when you consider she is 165cm. By my non-calculator based maths that’s like two-thirds of her height. But more impressive than the height is the repetition. I can tell you, if you get 2 out at your maximum you are done. Meares gets 5 out before the film ends and frankly, in my mind, kept going whilst also penning a letter to President Obama with a solution to the ISIS crisis (and no, it didn’t involve a unilateral invasion of Northern Iraq).

Even more impressive, she’s using a hard box. Having fallen on hard boxes many times I can understand why she’s wearing shin-guards, but I reckon she doesn’t need them. Anna just keeps on getting up there because she is Anna Meares and not even a broken fucking neck stops her.

It doesn’t surprise me that Anna can jump like this. The short sprints she dominates require this kind of dynamic, powerful movement from the major muscle groups in her legs and glutes.

Really, it’s just further evidence that Meares is the greatest ever Australian cyclist. Just like that 11^th World Championship that she won.