Britain's cyclists: better by design
On the opening day of the Olympic Games the rest of the cycling world would be advised to enjoy today's men's road race while they can. From tomorrow, the Brits are coming.
With all due respect to Jonny Bellis, Roger Hammond, Ben Swift and Steve Cummings, who will be flying the Union flag through Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City on their way to this afternoon's finish at the Great Wall, the real push towards what could be the greatest British Olympic performance in any sport for more than 80 years begins 24 hours later, when Nicole Cooke, Emma Pooley and Sharon Laws compete in the women's road race.
Even if Cooke and Pooley do not reach the podium – both could do well but the stifling conditions will be tough and road racing can be unpredictable – it should only be a case of delaying a surge of two-wheeled British success, particularly when the track events begin next week. The combination of a superbly talented generation of riders, brilliant management and improved funding has created an environment in which Britain is poised to enjoy a fortnight of unparalleled success.
UK Sport, which distributes Lottery funding, has set a target of six cycling medals, but by the time Oli Beckingsale and Liam Killeen finish the men's mountain bike race a fortnight today the British tally may well exceed that by some margin. Shanaze Reade, who rides in the BMX event, is arguably the hottest favourite of all, but it is in the velodrome where British riders are expected to enjoy their greatest triumphs. There are 12 gold medals at stake on the track and Dave Brailsford's squad boasts current world champions in seven of the events.
Other countries like to joke that British Olympians perform well only when sitting down, with cycling, sailing, rowing and equestrianism the country's most successful sports in recent times. British cyclists have certainly been making the rest of the world stand up and take note ever since Chris Boardman rode his revolutionary "superbike" to glory in Barcelona 16 years ago.
A second wave of podium appearances began with Jason Queally's gold medal in Sydney eight years later and gathered strength in Athens, where Bradley Wiggins produced the outstanding performance by becoming the first Briton in any sport to win three medals at a Games for 40 years.
Brailsford, who has led the sport to new heights since succeeding Boardman's former coach, Peter Keen, as British Cycling's performance director, feels even more confident of success here than he did four years ago. "We've had a whole Olympic cycle since Athens and I think we've improved our working practices and our professionalism," he said.
"We now have a model of how to achieve excellence and we all buy into it. There's a collective understanding of our principles and the philosophy on which the programme is based. We were still developing it before Athens. I feel I've been really lucky to be able to hire some fantastic people. We have some extremely good young coaches. We live on the edge all the time, but there's a greater stability and understanding about the way we operate, a better team ethos. We understand our business better than we did four years ago.
"The group of riders that we have now is the best that Britain has ever sent anywhere in the world. There are some world-class athletes and great strength in depth. The quality of the staff is also unbelievable. There's huge confidence in the camp, though we're not arrogant or overconfident. We're just ready to race."
Brailsford is the first to recognise that money has been a crucial factor. UK Sport's policy of rewarding success means that British Cycling's elite programme now receives £3.5m a year in Lottery funding, enabling a large squad of riders to train full-time with the support of the best coaches and with the benefit of cutting-edge equipment and facilities.
Sponsors, too, love success. Sky recently agreed a multimillion pound deal to back British Cycling over the next five years and a substantially bigger agreement is in the pipeline that will enable Brailsford to run an internationally competitive road-race team in events such as the Tour de France. Mark Cavendish, one of several outstanding products of the British Cycling Academy, won four stages on last month's Tour and with Wiggins, his track madison partner, ready to return to road racing next year there could be exciting times ahead.
The experienced Frenchman Arnaud Tournant, one of the sport's leading riders, described Britain earlier this year as "the only professional team in the world". Dipping into his bulging war chest, Brailsford has recruited the best back-room team in track cycling. Shane Sutton, a former Tour rider, has been his long-term No 2, and more recently he has brought in men such as the German sprint coach Jan van Eijden, who is a former world champion, and the Australian Scott Gardner, acknowledged as one of the world's leading performance analysts.
Steve Peters, who has become a world expert in the mental approach to sport, is also a key member of the team. The forensic psychiatrist, who in an earlier life worked on cases like that of the Soham child murderer Ian Huntley, was instrumental in convincing Victoria Pendleton to stay in cycling after she disappointed in Athens four years ago.
Central to Brailsford's philosophy is the belief that no stone should be left unturned in the pursuit of improvements and innovations that might make only tiny differences in themselves but, together, can be the difference between success and failure. For example, his team of doctors, nutritionists and sports scientists have developed regimes under which riders eat carefully – their diets include large quantities of fish oils and cherry juices – and dramatically cut their training programmes in the days immediately before competition, enabling the body to rebuild itself quickly.
Brailsford also has his "Secret Squirrel Club", a team of technical experts headed by Boardman and including specialists from Formula One motor racing. They are constantly looking at advantages that might be gained through bike design, materials and clothing.
The biggest scientific advances have been made thanks to work in a wind tunnel at Southampton University. Ninety per cent of a rider's energy is used to combat wind resistance rather than to drive the bike forward. Boardman's team take laser scans of every British rider and then feed the information into a computer, enabling them to work out how best to channel their energy.
"The position of the rider on the bike is absolutely critical," Boardman said. "We've put riders in the wind tunnel and given them real-time feedback so they can move their elbows or whatever and see what impact it has. I might talk to a rider and say his elbows are in the wrong position and he'll reply: 'Well, I feel much more comfortable in my current position and I feel I can generate much more power that way.'
"But if I put him in a wind tunnel he can see for himself that there's an instant drop in drag when he puts his head down or changes the position of his elbows. As soon as he sees that he appreciates what an effect it can have on his performance. Some of the things we've found have been surprising. We were always telling riders to get lower and lower on the bike, but we found that lower wasn't actually better and we've brought some of their riding positions up."
He added: "Ultimately, the rider is the chairman of the board. We just give them information and they decide what to do with it."
Rebecca Romero, who became the individual pursuit world champion in April only two years after taking up cycling, believes this approach, in which the rider is always in control, is crucial to Britain's success. The 28-year-old from Surrey won a rowing silver medal four years ago – if she finishes on the podium here she will be the first Briton ever to win medals in two summer Olympic sports – but quit the water in frustration at what she saw as a training regime based on the coaches rather than the athletes.
"The best comparison I can make is to say that going from rowing to cycling was like leaving school and going to university," she said. "At school you're dictated to and it's regimented. At university you're left to your own devices. You go away and work and you have your tutors you can use as and when you want. If you don't put the work in you won't pass your exams, but it's down to you. It's the same in cycling. There's the same trust and belief in the individual. They trust you that you want to be there, to work hard, and not to enjoy a cushy life.
"It's immensely different from the system I'd been in before. It really appealed to me. There was a lot of individuality. People did different things specific to their event. The whole system was based around the individual athletes. In rowing it felt as though the athletes were at the bottom of the pile."
Central to every aspect of Britain's success is Brailsford himself, a brilliant man manager who combines an ability to earn his team's trust with both a warmth of approach and a willingness to take tough and sometimes unpleasant decisions, such as dropping cyclists such as Queally and Rob Hayles, who have been mainstays of British success over the years.
He hopes that UK Sport's medal target will prove conservative but will not weigh his team's success in gold, silver and bronze. "We talk about target times, target processes and tactical racing plans rather than numbers of medals," he said. "If those target times help us to win medals, great, but if the opposition turn out better than us then good luck to them. If all goes well, though, I would hope that we're competitive for the podium in more than six events."
(c)independent.co.uk
MacLean says Olympic hopes are fading fast after Manchester trial
CRAIG MacLean admitted last night that he is "not optimistic" that he will be selected for this summer's Olympic Games, and that, at 36, he could be facing retirement.
MacLean's last realistic chance to convince the selectors that he should go to Beijing came at the Manchester Velodrome last night, with a trial event pitting him against Jason Kenny and the Olympic gold medallist from the 2000 Sydney Games, Jason Queally.
With three sprint cyclists already selected - Jamie Staff, Chris Hoy and Ross Edgar - only one place remains, and the three riders were each given an opportunity to impress in specially staged team sprint trials.
In the event, MacLean and Queally recorded the same time - 13.16 seconds for a flying lap of the 250m track - while 20-year old Kenny went two-tenths of a second quicker. He is now the outstanding favourite to claim the final place in the cycling team, which will be announced on 14 July.
"I've had better days," said MacLean. "I've had some good training sessions recently but today was not my best ride. It wasn't world class by today's standards, and I don't have much call to be optimistic about my chances of going to Beijing now. I don't see how they could justify taking me."
MacLean, from Grantown-on-Spey, has competed in two Olympic Games, winning a silver medal in the team sprint in Sydney, and was keen to put the disappointment of Athens in 2004, when his preparation was disrupted by illness and he performed below par in his two events, behind him.
Instead it looks as if that might have been his final appearance on the big stage, and MacLean, who turns 37 later this month, admits that he might now have to contemplate retirement.
"I don't know what (not going to Beijing] would mean for me," he said. "I can't see (British Cycling] continuing to fund me, and my funding runs out around the time of the Olympics.
"I could drop down (into a lower funding band], but given that I'm not a prospect for London (in 2012], I think that'd be unlikely. Whether it marks the end or not I don't know."
MacLean, who suffered a serious muscle injury at the end of last year, has one final opportunity to force his way into the team. A one-lap trial on Monday will put him head-to-head with Kenny, but MacLean isn't holding his breath. "I'd have to do something pretty spectacular," he said.
Queally, who is 14 months older than MacLean, finds himself in a similar position and could also be staring retirement in the face. Their departure would mark the end of a glorious era, with both riders instrumental in the British track cycling revolution.
The last ten years have seen the team transformed into the world's dominant track cycling nation, with MacLean contributing a massive seven medals in the world championships, as well as two, including one gold, for Scotland in the Commonwealth Games.
In the end, they have proved victims of the transformation they helped instigate, with the competition for places in the British team arguably tougher than in any other.
All rights reserved (c)2008 Johnston Press Digital Publishing
Great Briton Chris Hoy sets triple gold cycling target
Imagine Tiger Woods being told by the Royal and Ancient that The Open next year will be matchplay. That is a fair analogy for what cycling did to Chris Hoy.
The Scot was 29, the best in the world at what he did - the one kilometre time trial.
He was world and 2004 Olympic champion and only the second man in the event's long history to ride the distance in under a minute.
Then he took a call telling him some Swiss suits at the Union Cycliste Internationale had taken it off the Olympic programme.
He had to be persuaded it was not a wind-up and said: "I felt like they'd cut my career in half."
The emotion that remains three years later is nostalgia. He would love to see the 'kilo' back but says: "Oddly, in the last few months, I've admitted it was one of the best things that could have happened for me. Just when I was looking for a new challenge, wondering how I was going to get up for it for four more years, they'd given me one."
He focused instead on keirin, a bizarre match-racing event which the Japanese turned into a £3.7billion-a-year betting industry, where riders follow a motorcycle as it gradually increases the pace and then sprint for two-and-a-half laps when it peels off.
Hoy's mastery is so complete that he is a world champion, unbeaten in 24 successive official UCI keirin races going into Beijing.
He is also dominant in the sprint event, with every chance of individual and team gold at the Olympics. 'Is Chris Hoy Britain's greatest ever cyclist?' asked a magazine after he won two golds and a silver in the World Championships in Manchester in March, the 10th successive World Championships in which he has medalled.
No question mark necessary on whether he is part of the greatest British cycling team and the most successful British sports team of the current era with seven world golds last year and nine this year.
It is largely down to a remarkable Manchester-based support network of the world's most talented coaches, masseurs, mechanics and scientists which was made possible by the arrival of National Lottery millions in the late '90s.
That is why Hoy is willing to repay the debt by breaking the team's Olympic training lock-down for a trip to London to promote the launch of a new scratchcard.
Just how far Britain has come he will explain fully in a book Heroes, Villains & Velodromes, Inside Track Cycling with Chris Hoy, by Richard Moore, HarperSport published next month but he offers as an example the 1996 European Under 23 Championships in Moscow, his British debut.
"They could only afford three fares, so they sent three riders, no officials," he said. "We had our own bikes, were given one set of race wheels - if you punctured you were in real trouble - and one tracksuit which you had to sign out and give back so it could be put in mothballs for next time. You can't imagine anything close to that happening now. It would be unthinkable."
At the World Championships in Palma, Majorca last year there were 28 support staff for 18 riders and the ratio will be similar in Beijing.
In addition, a team of experts are busy creating specialist equipment from rubberised racing suits to unique handlebars. Hoy said: "It's all very subtle, even to the trained eye. I have seen the suit we will use and I'm told it will improve things but I couldn't see it. You just stick your body in it and take their word.
"I've won a world title by a thousandth of a second and lost a world record by five thousandths so I know how a little can make a difference.
"It's all about confidence, going into a race knowing we have the best programme, have done the most work, have the best equipment. The philosophy we have been given is that all we have to do is ride our bikes and just turn the pedals as fast as we can. The rest is taken care of."
Nobody in Beijing, Hoy is certain, will have done more training. "Putting yourself through four hours of pain every day for one minute of effort every fourth year," as he puts it.
"The kilo is a killer, a really nasty event where you're trying to create lactic acid tolerance and that's a horrible part of training. The keirin is speed and power, lots of training in the gym. It is all relative. If you don't work hard, you won't get results is the bottom line.
"I just like to get to the start line knowing there was nothing else I could have done, that there wasn't a single session I didn't give 100 per cent. The physical certainty means you can relax mentally and let the performance come."
Can it get any better for Britain than in Manchester? Hoy added: "That's my belief, for the team as a whole.We have been on the upward trend for three years, with seven golds in Palma and nine in Manchester just the fruits of all the hard work for years before, the result of having the best people in key areas."
Beyond Beijing for him? "On to London. Possibly I'll take my zimmer to Glasgow for the Commonwealth Games in 2014 but an Olympic win in your own country would be an amazing way to finish."
So three Olympic golds in a row? "Fingers crossed. Got to win one in Beijing first," he said One is the least of everybody's expectations. 'Go For Gold' is the 44th designated National Lottery Scratchcard launched to support London 2012.
National Lottery funding will contribute almost £2.2billion towards the Games.
(c) 2008 Associated Newspapers Ltd
Leader for a year
Italy's Franco Pellizotti, the Giro d'Italia's race leader for four days, has what could be his one chance to prove himself as a captain this year. As Cyclingnews' Gregor Brown found out, the 30 year-old, who rode for 2007 champion Danilo Di Luca and will have one Ivan Basso as team-mate next year, sees 2008 as his year to shine.
Franco Pellizotti has twice finished in the top ten of the Giro d'Italia. He finished ninth while riding in service of Danilo Di Luca last year, and was the team's highest finisher in eighth and took home a stage win in 2006 while Di Luca struggled in the mountains and was never in contention. This year, his four days in the pink jersey whetted his appetite to take home the final maglia rosa in Milano. However, he thinks that the last minute inclusion of the Astana team could make it difficult, not just for him but for any Italian to achieve an overall victory.
"The team's arrival really changed the outlook of the race," Pellizotti said of Astana, which was given a last minute invitation by RCS Sport, the organisers of the Giro d'Italia. "Without the team, it would be the Italians who would be battling it out over all the big stages. Even if they were called at the last moment they are prepared; I know Contador said that he came in unprepared, but he has been improving well in the last days."
The stage ten time trial showed just how prepared the Kazakh-backed team was, and at the end of the day their trio of leaders had all placed inside the top ten on the stage, and all had moved ahead of Pellizotti. Despite putting in a solid performance to finish 18th, 2'09" behind stage winner Marzio Bruseghin (Lampre), the situation put his team in a difficult tactical situation.
"Astana, they are in there and are able to play the cards with Leipheimer, Contador and Kloden. They are all riders who have experience and can do some damage," the blonde rider from Bibione commented.
Pellizotti expects Saturday's first true mountain stage to Alpe di Pampeago to make a difference. "It is the first true stage and I will have to feel out the force that is in the legs.
We have still yet to ride the big mountain stages, 'un tappone.' Someone will want to attack to make a difference, for sure. Surely it will be Di Luca who will want to try; he has been distanced in the classification, so it makes sense."
In addition to Di Luca, he added that the teams of Astana and Saunier Duval-Scott would be forcing the pace. "Watch out for the Saunier duo of Ricco and Piepoli," he warned. Ricco "has gone strong in this first week and then demonstrated today that he can ride a time trial. So, if his condition holds then he will be the one who could do some damage."
Pellizotti was also impressed with Russian Denis Menchov of Team Rabobank. "Menchov, we can never count him out," he said of the 2007 Vuelta a Espana winner. "He has been there. He did a great crono.
"It will be hard for the Italians to win this Giro, but we can look at this Giro as one of the most beautiful in the last years, with more champions at the start of the race more riders that want to take home the maglia rosa.
Copyright Future Publishing (Overseas) Limited, a Future plc group company, 1995-2007. All rights reserved.
Bradley McGee eyes first win of the year at Giro TTT
At the age of 32, Bradley McGee remains a major player in modern cycling, although he hasn't won a single road race in three years since taking stage three in the 2005 Tour of Switzerland. The Australian also loves his sport more than ever and looks at the Tour of Italy with the possibility of becoming a winner again in his lead up to his fourth Olympic Games as a track rider.
He collected one more medal (bronze in the team pursuit) at the track World's in Manchester and went back to road racing in April. "The Tour de Georgia was a perfect race to do before the Tour of Italy," he said. He started with a seventh place in stage one and pulled the sprints for his CSC team-mate Juan Jose Haedo. "I started to feel my good old sensations, things like a deep sleep and hunger that I hadn't enjoyed for years."
When he joined the Danish team, he asked to get nominated for the Giro d'Italia, the Grand Tour where he claimed his best overall finish with an eighth place in 2004, under the colours of Francaise des Jeux. In 2006, he was second in the prologue, but was forced to pull out because of sciatic problems. He started his new Italian campaign one week in advance, with a warm up at the GP Larciano and the Tour of Tuscany.
"I'm pumped! I love the Giro," he said, while looking at the marvelous landscapes of Sicily. "Six of us riding the Giro stayed together in Lucca for five days, training for the team time trial. The competition will be tight, with Slipstream and now Astana as well, but we have a big chance to win it." With the likes of Jens Voigt, Stuart O'Grady, Gustav Larsson, Nicky and Chris Anker Sorensen, Michael Blaudzun, Jason McCartney and Anders Lund around McGee, CSC will be hard to beat on the 23.6-kilometre flat course around the region's capital of Palermo.
"There's no way I'll put my hands up for GC but everything else, I'll have a crack," McGee promised. He won't be at the Tour de France for the third year in a row, but he'll ride the Dauphine Libere one week after the Giro. That will be his last road race prior to his Olympic track schedule. "The British riders [Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish from High Road] also have the same preparation plan with the Giro," he noticed.
Beijing will be McGee's fourth Olympics. In Atlanta, Sydney and Athens, he got a medal in the individual pursuit. He's also the defending champion with his Australian mates in the team pursuit. He might have been in search of a big result on the road for a long time now, but his days aren't over.
Copyrigth Future Publishing (Overseas) Limited, a Future plc group company, 1995-2007. All rights reserved.
Excellent turnout as Southport Cycling Club hosts British Cycling North West Regional Youth Championships
May 2 2008
by Our Correspondent, Southport Visiter
SOUTHPORT Cycling Club hosted the British Cycling, North West Region, Youth Championships on the Victoria Park circuit last weekend.
An impressive 110 riders were competing for the honour of Regional Champion.
Three riders taking part were 2007 champions, Laura Allen, New Brighton CC, u14 girls; Jacob Ragan, Eastlands Velo, u12 boys; and Kim Baptista, Eastlands Velo, u8 girls.
Laura and Jacob have both moved up a category for 2008 to u16 and u14 respectively with Kim remaining at u8 for the last time. All three went on to take victory again this year. The recent Terry Dolan sponsored race series which was completed only two weeks previously provided some indication of which riders were currently in good form and there were no major surprises in any of the groups, apart maybe in the under-16 boys where Adam Yates, Sports City Velo, had won the recent Terry Dolan series.
He was pushed into the silver medal position by twin brother Simon who rode away strongly in the closing stages of their 45km race to win by a margin of 11secs and claim the title of best regional schoolboy.
The Championship medal winners were;
U16 boys, 1st Simon Yates, Sports City Velo; 2nd Adam Yates, Sports City Velo; 3rd Chris Sherriffs, Sports City Velo. U16 girls, 1st Laura Allen, New Brighton CC; 2nd Sophie Gore, Sports City Velo; 3rd Alicia Corlett, Scottish Provident IoM. U14 boys, 1st Jacob Ragan, Eastlands Velo; 2nd Chris Latham, Eastlands Velo; 3rd Josh Penrice, Eastlands Velo. U14 girls, 1st Melissa Bury, Sports City Velo; 2nd Hannah Leyland, Mossley CRT; 3rd Jess Anderson, Sports City Velo. U12 boys, 1st Sam Turton, Ribble Valley Juniors CRC; 2nd Matthew Davies, Scottish Provident IoM; 3rd Leon Mazzone, Scottish Provident IoM. U12 girls, 1st Claire Gore, Red Rose Olympic; 2nd India Penrice, Eastlands Velo; 3rd Jessica Wilkinson, Birkenhead North End CC. U10 boys, 1st Matthew Draper, Scottish Provident IoM; 2nd Leighton Sharman, Liverpool Century RC; 3rd Matthew Walls, Eastlands Velo. U10 girls, 1st Emma Nicholson, Scottish Provident IoM. U8 boys, 1st Dan Gibson, Liverpool Century RC. U8 girls, 1st Kim Baptista, Eastlands Velo; 2nd Olivia Braybrooke, Eastlands Velo.;
Round three of the Thursday evening ten mile time trial series saw Preston CC rider P Johnstone take his third successive win, posting a time of 23mins 05secs from a field of twenty six riders which encouragingly saw a total of fourteen riders from the Southport club taking the start. Bill Sedgewick took the points towards the club ten mile championship with a time of 24mins 19secs and Bill Lloyd headed the Veterans on Standard for the third week with a +6mins 34secs clocking an actual of 25mins 26secs. Bill also posted a creditable 25mins 04secs, his season’s best, in Wigan Wheelers 10mile TT last Saturday afternoon.
(c) 2008 owned by or licensed to Trinity Mirror North West & North Wales Limited.
Team CSC's Giro line-up ready
Team CSC has chosen the line-up for this year's edition of Giro d'Italia. "It's kind of a mixed team we've chosen," commented team manager Bjarne Riis. "There's both guys who are going for the overall result as well as several who are able to go for the individual stages and we're also hoping to do well in the team time trial."
The line-up for Team CSC is as follows: Gustav Larsson, Chris Anker Sorensen, Jens Voigt, Stuart O'Grady, Bradley McGee, Anders Lund, Michael Blaudzun, Jason McCartney and Nicki Sørensen.
"Gustav and Chris will be trying for the overall result and we're quite excited about that of course," added Riis. "At the same time, Chris will have the chance to go for the white Youth Jersey, which Andy Schleck won last year. We also have a Grand Tour debutant with us in Anders Lund, who's done well and it'll also be interesting to see how he does under pressure.
"Jens and Stuart are there to build up their form towards Tour de France after they've both taken a break recently, but we know both of them well enough to know that they're able to win a stage or two at any given time. But that goes for everyone in the line-up - we'll be going for stage wins as soon as the opportunity comes along," he concluded.
Copyright Future Publishing (Overseas) Limited, a Future plc group company, 1995-2007. All rights reserved.
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