It wiped away the pain of the broken handlebars that robbed them in Tokyo.
The pain of being denied gold by just 0.7 of a second in Rio, and by 2.9 seconds in London, and of missing the medals altogether in Beijing.
And who else could they beat in the final than Great Britain which had been the source of so much of that pain for so many years.
Sam Welsford, Kelland O’Brien, Conor Leahy and Oliver Bleddyn emerged from a titanic battle with their arch rival at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines National Velodrome with an historic gold medal.
Barely 0.2 of a second separated the two teams for almost the entire 4km before Australia broke their opponents on the final lap and won by over two seconds.
Their time of 3:42.067 was slower than their world record ride 24 hours earlier when they clocked 3:40.430, but it didn’t matter.
“We all knew we had it in us,” Sam said.
“When we saw a 40 up on the board yesterday we were all a bit surprised but we backed ourselves in with our form and the work we’ve done."
“And I’m just really stoked to stand here with my brothers and Tim (coach Tim Decker) who is like family to me, to get a gold medal not only for us but for him he’s been with us a long time and ridden the ups and downs as a team so it’s even more special.”
It is Australia’s first gold medal in the sport’s blue riband event since Athens in 2004 when Graeme Brown, Brett Lancaster, Brad McGee and Luke Roberts beat Great Britain in the final.
And to show how far - and fast - the sport has come in 20 years, their winning time in 2004 was 3:58.
Of all the iterations Australia has had trying to break the Olympic drought, it took two debutants in Conor and Oliver who teamed with experienced campaigners Kelland and Sam to deliver an historic victory.
“I know I’ve gone close in the past but I didn’t really focus on what we’ve done, I focused on what we were doing,” Sam said.
“I knew we were in a good spot, breaking the world record yesterday, and it was really nice to come here being a bit of the underdogs, I think a lot of people underestimated what we can do and we used that to our advantage.”
Kelland said the final all went to plan.
“It was a heated battle as it always is, hats off to those guys they rode an amazing race, and we just stuck to our process and nailed it,” he said.
“I couldn’t be more proud of the boys and Tim for getting it done, we’ve said all along it’s going to be won on day three and it was.”
Eight years earlier, Sam Welsford and Tim Decker sat in the middle of the velodrome in Rio dejected, having just lost to a Bradley Wiggins-led Great Britain by 0.7 of a second - a margin so small it’s almost impossible to even measure.
Last night Sam and Tim were arm in arm after the race, having turned the tables.
Tim has been through Olympic cycles in Rio and Tokyo with Australia, then took a one-year sabbatical coaching in China in 2022.
But he returned to coach Australia to Paris because he knew he had unfinished business and after the race he was almost lost for words.
“This is such a big moment for these boys and they deserve it, we’ve been to hell and back and for them to make this happen has been amazing,” he said.
“And to be a small part of that journey, to help lead them and get them to keep believing that it was possible, that’s one of the things I’ve prided myself on.”
Asked whether he was surprised by what his riders were able to do in Paris, Tim replied:
“No, never. People forget Tokyo and what happened. We were a very, very strong team there and we got a bronze medal and the resilience these boys showed and to move forward from that and come back and make this happen is high level history in track endurance cycling.”
