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Is cycling our biggest Olympic hope?

by Simon Austin (U1645949) 12 March 2007
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It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say there's been a revolution in British cycling.

GB won only three golds at major championships during the 1990s. Yet since the Millennium, they have won 15 golds.

There are five main reasons for this:

1) the advent of lottery funding in the late 1990s
2) the building of the Manchester velodrome
3) excellent leadership from Peter Keen and then Dave Brailsford
4) a superb structure
5) top-class coaches and support staff

Things are so good that an official from British Cycling told me they expect to win five gold medals at Beijing 2008, with an outside chance of a further five.

What do you think - is British Cycling an example for other sports in the UK?

And is it our best chance of gold medals in Beijing next year and at London 2012?

Latest 10 comments

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posted Mar 14, 2007

Well cycling produced britain's most succesful olympian in 2004 with Wiggins becoming first GB athlete for 4 decades to win three medals at one olympiad...

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posted Mar 14, 2007

Inputjoe - well, despite visiting the BBC cycling site every day, I must have missed it. By the way inputjoe, exactly whose side are you on? If you want some real debate about the sport, please join us on:
http://justcycling.myfastforum.org/

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posted Mar 14, 2007

Got to echo some of the commetns above that what is happening at Eastway is a disgrace, and so is the lack of coverage in the non-cycling press. Imagine the outrage and press coverage if the Hackney marshes football pitches had been taken away by the ODA, with a reneged on promise that they would be re-instated post Olympics? But the ODA has screwed over grass-roots London cycling with barely a word raised in protest. So much for the olympics being about sport for the people, but then, we always knew that it was really all about money, didnt we?

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posted Mar 14, 2007

Iv, I checked out the site. There is debate but also google ads and photos of hand puppets and people mowing their lawn. I'm ok here for now.

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posted Mar 14, 2007

Haven't been able to verify this with a quick search, but wasn't one of the UK cyclists the first to point out that our track and field 'stars' weren't delivering the goods in terms of medals per million £?

And I'm pretty sure that Lottery funding allocation is weighted towards medal-winning sports; so a little bit of success generates investment and enhances medal winning prospects. That means the track cyclists' success has been doubly earned and deserved.

Like Stephen Roche used to say, "There's no such thing as a small victory".

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comment by Corby (U2919688)

posted Mar 16, 2007

Most likely medal prospects
Victoria Pendelton track
Nicole Cooke Road TT and Track
Chris Hoy Track
Bradley Wiggins TT and track
David Miller TT? (doping conviction may stop him competing)
Men persuit team
Sprint team
Liam Kileen MTB
Shenase reade BMX (apologies if i spelt name wrong)
aswell as all our up and coming riders I think the prediction of 5golds is and possibly another 5 is an under estimation

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posted Mar 19, 2007

["How'd they work that out? They got three medals total in Athens, what makes them so confident of five golds in Beijing?"]

They got 9 medals total in 2000 (Sydney) & 8 medals total in 2004 (Athens)

With more riders now World Class it's easily possible for 5 golds in 2008. We will know more confidently after medals at the Worlds in a few days time, but going by the World Cup round in Manchester it's Happy Days!

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posted Mar 22, 2007

woo! a mention of bmx on here! it amuses me how some of the best track riders have a bmx background but a lot of racers end up riding other forms of bmx. maybe the lure of olympic gold will change this.....

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comment by Corby (U2919688)

posted Mar 26, 2007

Unfortunately most BMX racers can make more money from Track and eventually road racing

Obvious exemption are probably the flat and street stars of indoor BMX who made a mint

Also alot of 4X and DH racers drift towards track for the extra training benefit

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posted Mar 27, 2007

Thought people might be interested in David Brailsford's "Podium or nothing" approach to Britain's team cycling performance.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/sport/othersports.html?in_article_id=444831&in_page_id=1781

I don't normally read the Daily Mail, I swear.

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