posted Mar 31, 2008

"Since you use this point to diminish the value of the Team GB effort around which this article is posted, then I think it is an interesting topic"

I wasn't trying to diminish the efforts of our cyclists, I was objecting to using their achievements as a way of diminishing other sports, namely Athletics. Surely you can see how much more competetive Athletics is on a global scale? The majority of the medals won in Beijing on the track will come from either African-American athletes, or East African distance runners. Very broad generalisation, I know but by and large true I think. These are people that will not only have never had a chance to ride highly technical bikes on a velodrome, nor have any incentive to do so because there is no role model for them. These are essentially the factors that matter.

Anyway, I digress. I was very impressed with our cyclists over the weekend, I'm sorry that I didn't get that point across. In fact I watched it all, it was fantastic. But let's call a spade a spade here ... it's not a truly global sport and cannot and should not be compared to certain other sports

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posted Mar 31, 2008

From a Dutchman who lived for 10 years in the UK:
well done on this great achievement!

On comparisons with athletics: I would say that certainly has more international profile. Possibly to do with running etc being more natural, equipment-free pursuits, closer to "primitive man". Also track cycling needs more facilities and for a broad base a good road network with cycling paths certainly helps. And finally, TV and big commerce had their claws in athletics way before cycling, a self-perpetuating effect.

On someone saying that swimming is more middle class: in many developed countries this concept does not really apply as in the UK. And on specifically "white middle class": unlike for many forms of running, black physiology (denser muscles) for once does not help, black swimmers lie too deep in the water and the extra drag rules them out of competition. Otherwise, swimming is a low cost sport (minimal equipment to start with), open to most.

Also check out the Dutch cycling monster Marianne Vos - even the UK does not have a talent like this... But given the Dutch cycling tradition we should have produced a few more like this.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/track/2008/mar08/wtc08/?id=/news/2008/mar08/mar30news2

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posted Mar 31, 2008

Denmonster,

I agree with much of your last post, if we are talking track-specific. Clearly for nations to be competitive in track cycling they are going to need access to a velodrome and some reasonable bikes! I agree this does remove some poorer countries, or some with no velodrome.

I can also understand how it seems presumptious of us to declare that Team GB have some magic formula that must now be applied to other less successful sports (at this moment in time). Remember that us cyclists have had very little GB success for a very long time - we want to shout loud now things are going well!!

On the broader cycling spectrum (ie if we talk about road cycling) I would say cycling is a global as most sports, and going back to the related discussion about numbers of participants, I was hoping for you to provide some concrete numbers of British athletic clubs since the BC club number I posted (1400) beats your athletics estimate by an order of magnitude

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posted Mar 31, 2008

well, looks like my 150 guess was a bit wrong...! this link says there are 1400, the exact number of cycling clubs you stated

http://www.ukathletics.net/clubs/search/

anyway, I was never intending to take away from the achievements of this weekend, they really were fantastic. What's the likelihood of this success being replicated in the summer? (I have heard them say several times that there'll be slightly fewer events in Beijing)

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posted Mar 31, 2008

We have excellent chances for medals in the Olympics (who wouldn't think that?), but it scares me when people say "we won X gold medals at the Worlds therefore we will get Y gold medals at the Olympics" (I'm not talking about you Denmonster, but others). Its a little naive and presumes too much, and in a way belittles the efforts these guys have to go through if someone thinks its a foregone conclusion.

Dave Brailsford had it right when he said he doesn't think about the medals, but concentrates on the small steps needed for improvement (times etc) to get to be the best the riders can possibly be.

By the way (in reply to PimBo), I totally agree about the amazing achievements of Marianne Vos - what a girl! I love to see any rider at the top of their game, be it Cancellara in the classics, or Vos in cyclo-X/road/track (!) or Condator attacking an Alpine mountain, or Hoy fending off all the Kerin competitors. Its just a little sweeter when they are British

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posted Mar 31, 2008

__cats,
That is only natural!

BTW, in Holland some now worry because of Miss Vos now wanting to ALSO ride the time trial in Beijing - which would mean four Olympic cycling events, all as different as cycling can be, within a very short time period...

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posted Mar 31, 2008

the track cyclists are really showing everybody how to compete at major championships. professionalism and preparation from the entire team is paying great dividends for them and congrats to them for it. surely other sports should follow the example (not necessarily copy the framework) but the atitude of the athletes.

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posted Mar 31, 2008

Don't underestimate the value of the Manchester Velodrome. That is a fantastic facility, the likes of which my own sport of fencing would kill for. Training in those surroundings adds an extra boost to any sport. We train with very underwhelming facilities and no national centre at which to base out best coaches and athletes.

Cycling seems to have learnt that throwing all of the money at the athletes will not do the job, you have to have the best facilities and coaches. Hopefully they are also putting structures in place so that homegrown coaches can learn from the best and future success can be a wholely domestic affair.

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posted Mar 31, 2008

British Cycling, and everyone involved, deserve all the plaudits they get for their achievements over the last week, and it's sad that some find it necessary to diminish them.
In particular, it's profoundly depressing to see that these old wives' tales about black swimmers are still being repeated. There is not a shred of evidence to support these statements, and these lazy racist assumptions stopped being current in the swimming community many years ago. Cullen Jones mught have something to say about this.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6uioS8L4F2g

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posted Mar 31, 2008

Denmonster.

Please explain (with some evidence this time) why cycling can't be considered a global or comparable sport? You have a bunch of athletes from 30 different countries (as many as track athletics Worlds 2007) pushing to their Vo2 Max (Highest ever recorded was a cyclist called Greg LeMond and a skier called Bjørn Dæhlie by the way), chasing each other around a circular track against the stopwatch (sounds very familiar to athletics huh?). It uses a system of heats and finals and even shares many rules with that of track running. Hang on a minute. Isn't track cycling really just pedalling around a track against the clock instead of running around it? Well I never : )

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