World champion track cyclist targets Tokyo Olympics a week after cancer surgery

Two-time world champion track sprinter Matthew Glaetzer says he is determined to compete at next year’s Tokyo Olympic Games – despite undergoing surgery for thyroid cancer last week after being diagnosed with the disease in late October.

Speaking to the 7 News TV show Weekend Sunrise, the 27-year-old Australian said: "It's the worst news anyone can get, so the moment was pretty terrible.

"I had a sore neck and it wasn't going away, so my medical team were very thorough and an MRI picked up a couple of nodules on my thyroid gland.

"I found out on the 25th October and had about a week until the surgery."

Glaetzer continued: "Thankfully it is a treatable kind of cancer, so it's just trying to manage the recovery now and keep my eyes on Tokyo.

"I'll be in the gym seeing what I can do. The rest of me is fine, I just had my neck cut open pretty bad."

In November 2017, while competing at the UCI Track Cycling World Cup inManchester, Glaetzer became the first man ever to ride the kilo at sea level in a time of under 1 minute.

He won gold in that event at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, where he also triumphed in the keirin, defending the title he had won four years earlier in Glasgow.

He won the rainbow jersey in the team sprint at the 2012 UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Melbourne in 2012, and took the individual title at Apeldoorn last year.

To date, an Olympic medal has eluded the Adelaide-born rider, however; at Rio 2016, he finished fourth in both the individual and team sprints.