- 14 Aug 08, 08:43 AM
On a July night in 1992, 12-year-old Bradley Wiggins sat in front of a television with his cycling-mad father Gary and watched Chris Boardman storm to Olympic gold in the individual pursuit.
At that moment he decided, in his own words, "to do something with my life".
Sixteen years down the line, here in Beijing, Wiggins goes for his second Olympic gold in the same event - with Boardman alongside him as mentor and technical advisor.
To the untrained eye, both Boardman and Wiggins made their triumphs look easy.
Boardman actually caught his German opponent Jens Lehmann in that '92 final, while Wiggins took gold in Athens by over four seconds.
The reality, as Boardman told me, is a whole heap more complicated - and brutal.
"Once the race kicks off, for about a minute it's free," he explains.
"You'll have a pre-determined schedule that's been practised and practised to get the most out of yourself over that distance, and you'll be getting feedback from the coaches by the track.
"At that stage, there is no pain - and that makes it very dangerous. You can try too hard and overcook it, and pay a huge price later on.
"When it does start to bite after a minute, there's an equation that goes through your head: 'how hard am I trying?'; 'how far is there to go?'; and 'can I keep this up?'.
"The answer you want to the last part is 'maybe'.
"If the answer is 'yes', you're not going fast enough. If the answer is 'no', it's too late - you've already blown too much."
Wiggins timed his effort to perfection in Manchester earlier this year to make it two pursuit world titles on the bounce.
According to Boardman, if he's in that shape again in the Laoshan Velodrome, the second part of the race can take on an unreal quality.
"When an athlete has got really good peak form, the effort doesn't really register as pain. You're releasing huge amounts of natural painkillers - endorphins and adrenaline.
"You just realise that your legs won't go round as quickly as you want them to.
"You reach a physical limit. You can't do any more - that's how it feels.
"When you really suffer, is when it's not working out, when it's not going for you, because those hormones are diminished, and you start to feel everything.
"The pain just mounts and mounts as you get closer to the line."
Wiggins will be watched by 6,000 fans inside the velodrome, with millions more watching on television, just as he did in 1992.
This time, however, he's unlikely to be aware of anything more than just his body and his bike.
"The crowd is something you remember afterwards," says Boardman. "The only things that are getting through your filters are the bits that are important.
"The event is relatively short - around four and a half minutes - so there's an intense focus on getting it all out before you hit the line.
"With a lap and a half to go, it's effectively a sprint. You go as hard as you can, and when you cross the line you see what's happened."
Qualifying for Wiggins starts on Friday morning just before 10am UK time, with the final 26 hours later.
Boardman believes that the hardest part of the entire event for Wiggins is right now - the waiting.
"Your mind plays the 'what if?' game - what if this happens, what if that happens - and that's a very intense time.
"That's when you need a third party to come in and talk logic to you - or to sit and ask you the questions so you talk logic to yourself.
"When I won gold in 1992. I sat there an hour before the final with the psychologist I was working with, and I told him that I felt absolutely terrible.
"I would have done anything to get out of it at that moment.
"He said to me, 'You've got to feel like that.' It was a bit of a shock, that he wasn't saying 'don't feel like that'.
"He told me to accept it, because it had to feel like that - the race was so important to me.
"It's like the elephant in the room. Don't pretend it's not there.
"It's got nothing to do with your performance. Could I have done more training? Irrelevant. You are who you are today. The only thing you can be is as good as you can be.
"If you keep repeating that, almost as a mantra, it puts you in control. You can only affect you.
"Learning to deal with that is the biggest skill a bike rider can have."
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Comments
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Does anyone else or is it just me think that we are building our athletes up far too much only for them to come crashing down at the actual event ( peter cousins judo
murray tennis daley diving archery shooting and hockey all disappointing )
Lets hope Team GB directors realise that you cant work in B and Q all day and be successful against the likes of the chinese and other countries - also the lack of athletes in key sports such as gymnastics basketball and where on earth were the footballers?
There are possibly more UK reporters and cameramen et al there than athletes!
Sorry to be pessimistic - I love to back the GB athletes but when success doesnt come after building them up so much the enthusiasm does begin to wain
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Mirador, we have no footballers because this is a GB Olympic team. In football you we are represented by the home nations individually. Apparently it would be asking too much of the respective FAs to show up as a united GB football squad...
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Mirador - I think you will find that all of our cyclists are professional. And Poster 2 has already answered your question on the football. Do you even follow sport?
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As suspected the football FA's are messing this up for us then - how grown up are they ?
I agree that our cyclists are pros and as a result of this are doing ok so far and have a couple of medals - my point was where are the gymnasts / basketballers etc who are not pros and boy do those sports show our lack of depth
Yes I do follow sport - very keen on rugby which isnt an olympic sport yet but like the FA we would probably have a similar problem fielding a team
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"As suspected the football FA's are messing this up for us then - how grown up are they ?"
The footballs FA's may be causing problems for fielding a team in 2012, where we automatically qualify due to being the host nation. It seems the BOC are keen to enter a team and the most outcome likely to be an all english team due to other countries fearing the loss of independence in FIFA'a eyes.
However for Beijing (and all other olympics), football qualification for eurpoean teams is decided by the European Under-21 Football Championship, as GB do not enter a team (they enter as England, Scotland, Wales, N Ireland) they could never qualify.
England did get one of the four qualification places at the Euro Under 21's but as it was England not GB the place went to Italy who beat portugal in a play-off for the place.
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Seems a bit all over the place to me
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Gymnastics and basketball are not particularly popular sports in the UK. By the same token, if 20/20 cricket got included for the 2012 games as some people are hoping, there would be no cricket team from the USA or China, does that mean they lack depth? No, people are drawn to sports that are popular in their culture, or that they have family connections to, or that their heros suceeded in.
The article above shows how one Chris Broadman can turn into many world class cyclists years down the line. He was obviously a hero of Wiggins and I'm sure many others. Also Wiggins has a cycling enthusiast for a father which always helps. How many youngsters in the UK have heros in gymnastics, or basketball-mad parents? When outside the olympics are sports like weightlifting or canoeing ever given tv coverage or media attention?
At the same time, we have far more representatives at the top level of other sports, like motor racing, that our population would suggest, simply because there is a tradition of the sport in this country, and kids have always had successful heros to look up to.
Here's hoping that the success of the current GB cyclists will inspire a new generation to take up the sport.
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Mirador- Re Rugby, have you never heard of the British Lions??
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A bit disappointed that most of the posts here are about football or other irrelevancies. What seems to have been missed by all respondants is that this is a great article about being at the pinnacle of a chosen sport. Fantastic.
The part about when the pain comes in is fantastic - a real and true description of how it works.....and when he describes the psychology of it you can sense how much a programming of the mind is soo important to building a world-beating athlete.
An excellent article - thanks Chris.
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Have you ever seen the British Lions in a league of 'Best Teams'. They aren't counted as a national team but as a 'unique touring side' they dont have a world ranking, they aren't recognised as a national team by the WRU
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Of course I know the lions but with all the other rugby associations etc we would be bound to upset someone!
My original comment about the media piling the pressure on to perform well - do you think this has an effect on the athlete in question ?
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Ahem. They are also known as the British and Irish Lions...
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It's no surprise that Boardman caught Jens Lehmann in the final in '92 - the ex-Arsenal stopper has never had a reputation as much of a pursuiter! ...I'll get my coat.
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A lot of pressure on the Brit cyclists, especially after all the money the governmanet have pumped in to it...
I hope they don't crack under pressure.
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It's no wonder Wiggins is so good as apparently he started out at Herne Hill velodrome. I went down there for a taste of the action a couple of months ago and was lined up against a dreadlocked, bearded courier with "Love" and "Hate" tattooed across his knuckles. There is nothing like racing Hell Boy on a bike with no brakes around 35 degree concrete walls to focus the mind. The Olympics will be a doddle for Wiggins after that sort of preparation.
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"Have you ever seen the British Lions in a league of 'Best Teams'. They aren't counted as a national team but as a 'unique touring side' they dont have a world ranking, they aren't recognised as a national team by the WRU"
Thanks Buxton, but what on Earth is the WRU, surely the IRB compile team rankings? Also rugby would never encounter the problem of loosing national representation as the home nations make up approximately half of the 'top' teams at present, meaning there is no problem if they wish to amalgamate for the olympics, financially they are far more valuable if they represent the individual unions, so no one would have a problem of them forming a one off Britain team
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OK, why is everyone going on about Rugby? This article is about cycling! It's all irrelevant and totally moot.
I don't understand some people's pessimism either. Our cyclists are world-class and I'm confident they'll deliver a bag-full of gold's for Team GB.
We already have two medals in this sport, a gold and a silver, from athletes who weren't expected to get a place on the podium. That'll lift the whole team and if the men's sprint team can add to that tally tomorrow we will be flying!
We have the best in he world in Hoy, Wiggins, Cavendish, Romero, Read, Pendleton etc.
Let's stop knocking them down and show a bit of support!
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Great blog, Tom - thanks. Will enhance my enjoyment of the race to have a better idea of what they're going through.
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Pursuits are gripping to watch but must be soul-destroying if you're in it and it's not going your way-purgatory! Two riders just going at each other with nowhere to hide is very compelling.
Excellent insightful article and best of luck to Team GB cyclists.
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The problem we have in this country is that too often we big-up athletes who aren't ready. Mark Lewis-Francis was going to sweep all before him, Andy Murray is going to win a Grand Slam, Tom Daley is the great hope of British diving (it was only ever the media that thought he might get a medal here).
The difference with the track cyclists is that they won 11 medals (7 gold) at the 2007 world championships followed by 9 golds (half of the total) at the 2008 world championships.
They are bigged up because they are already the best in the world, and you don't get to be the best in the world by folding under media pressure.
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Yep, I don't think the cyclists have many problems with mental fragility or choking.
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The situation is a little different in the mass start events - the points race and madison (there is no scratch race at the Olympics). In these events there are several random factors (crashes, punctures, wrong positioning in the field, etc) that can increase the mental pressures significantly.
The track events so far, and the road time trial, are more individual types of events, in the sense that competitors either only have one direct competitor to worry about, or they are racing against the clock. This results in the sort of pressures Chris has outlined affecting the riders, exacerbated by the media pressure.
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2 Bronze, a Silver and 2 Gold
Get in
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