A gold medal winner on the track back in 2002 at Manchester with the men’s team pursuit, Renshaw will be part of a seven-man road team for Glasgow and is the most experienced member of the group.

It gives the lead-out specialist a perfect opportunity to state a case for selection at the World Championships and the 2016 Olympics, though it could throw up some interesting scenarios given Renshaw’s schedule.

The Glasgow Games begin on July 23, with the road race to take place on August 3.

The small matter of the Tour de France comes between now and then, with the world’s biggest stage race set to conclude on July 27.

Normally Renshaw could afford the luxury of pulling the pin on his Tour campaign early to prepare for the Games, but with his team role alongside sprint star Mark Cavendish and their annual tilt at the final Tour stage, that seems unlikely.

He is joined in the Australian team by an otherwise young team headed by versatile Victorian Simon Clarke, Australia’s best-placed finisher at last year’s UCI World Championships in the road race.

Luke Durbridge, Michael Hepburn, Rohan Dennis, Nathan Haas and Caleb Ewen round out the team.

It has been a long time between drinks as far as Australian representation goes for the 32-year-old Omega Pharma-Quick Step rider.

After getting a taste of gold in 2002 he was part of the team which went to Athens for the 2004 Olympics, his place on the track team becoming a subject of controversy when he was replaced in the madison event by Stuart O’Grady.

He instead competed in the points race, finishing sixth.

As his transition to road racing took full effect, he didn’t race at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games, nor the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

He had been picked to ride for his country at the Delhi Commonwealth Games in 2010, but declined to attend due to terrorism fears.

Despite Renshaw and several others pulling out, Australia produced their strongest ever results at the event in claiming 21 medals overall including 14 gold.

Since then the English riders have emerged to become one of the strongest groups in the world thanks to the likes of Tour de France winners and Olympic medalists Sir Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome.

While he declined to say whether there would be a designated ‘leader’ for the road race, Australian coach Brad McGee says that the campaign will be used in part to try and give experience to some younger riders.

“The Commonwealth Games is quite different to a standard World Tour road cycling event which most of our leading Australian road riders are used to,” McGee said.

“This team is quite a unique Australian men’s road team, different to the normal, larger sized World Championships team of up to nine riders. 

“This year we will introduce some new names and new faces to the National team now and each rider will have very specific roles.”