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Sir Dave Brailsford (copyright Britishcycling.org.uk)Dave Brailsford comes out against Scottish independence
Former Team GB cycling boss Dave Brailsford has added his voice to the campaign for a No vote in the referendum on Scottish independence this Thursday, September 18.
Brailsford was a major factor in the successful Olympic career of Scottish track cycist Chris Hoy, whose seven medals make him the most decorated Olympic cyclist of all time, and the most successful British Olympic athlete alongside Bradley Wiggins.
Following Team GB's success at the London Olympics, Brailsford recently stepped down from the role of performance director of British Cycling to focus on running the Sky professional team, which has no Scottish riders in its ranks.
In a statement from the Better Together campaign, Brailsford said: “Scotland has been a huge part of the success of British Cycling, and I hope the UK stays together for the benefit of all sport, but especially Olympic sports like ours. UK sport is one of the best things this country has and it is all possible because we can share talent, resources and ideas.
“I was born in England but raised in Wales with Welsh as my first language, and I feel passionately Welsh, English and British, and I feel all the countries of the UK are a big part of my national identity. My message to friends in Scotland is simple: 'It is for you to decide your own future but for the sake of UK sport I hope you vote NO.'"
Brailsford is the latest of many celebritis and sportspeople to advise the Scottish people to stay in the United Kingdom, as polls have shown an increase in support for the Yes campaign.
It could be said that perhaps trotting out sportspeople, singers and actors to comment on the most important Scottish political decision in hundreds of years gives the impression that Better Together is taking a patronising attitude to the campaign. Some might say that getting the Davids Bowie, Beckham and Brailsford to speak for Scotland not leaving the UK rather trivialises the debate, and could even be counter-productive.
After the recent Apple iPhone 6 and watch launch, the Yes campaign is probably now hoping for Bono to to come out against Scottish independence to clinch a landslide victory on Thursday.
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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57 comments
Ach...you can't make a decision that will have profound geopolitical and socio-economic consequences on sport and winning medals. Now that would be daft.
Having said that I do despair at the 'shut yer mouth' brigade, he's perfectly entitled to his opinion. I sometimes wish they would follow their own advice.
Still voting Yes mind you...
Great Britain is a geographical construct anyway.
Its the United Kingdom thats going to go tits up after a Yes vote.
TBH so the fcuk what? He doesnt get a vote so his opinion don't count. Nothing to see here, move along please.
After the 18th it will be known as FUK(Formaly United Kingdom).........
VOTE YES ON THE 18th
Oh. I thought Road was an island of safety. Even my Twitter feed of cycling persons has gone all "Aye!/Nae!". I'm on the verge of unfollowing a few very erudite and knowledgeable people.
As a proud Englishman, I genuinely hope Scotland votes no. That's because I believe the Yes campaign have systematically and shamefully lied to the more vulnerable and gullible parts of the electorate and as a result, it has not been a 'clean' choice. I also fear that the biased question posed, and the sheer fact that people given a choice 'to do something or not' tend to 'do it', may produce a false result.
If it is a yes, I genuinely hope the prayers and dreams of King Eck are realised and Scotland constructs a prosperous egalitarian country. If it does, I'll happily move there, as I love the place and its people.
He talks 'Tosh'
British cycling is great if you are a man, but appalling if you are a woman.
Scotland treats women in sports a whole lot better, and what the blue blazes has anything he says got to do with the future of Scotland!? The media is really scraping the barrel regarding the vote.
Its finally here, the Road.cc officially unofficial Scottish Independence thread. So Sir Dave is allowed to have his say, but its alright to tell him to F-off is it? The Yes campaign isn't helped by inarticulate outbursts.
Here are some facts: even with a yes there is a reasonable chance Scotland will still be in the Union by Rio, it is less than two years away, and there is no end of other important things to settle first.
The achievements of Sir Chris Hoy and Sir Andy Murray and Sir Jackie Stewart, etc will always British. You can start an edit war on Wikipedia to try and change those little flags but I distinctly remember Andy crying and singing the National Anthem at Wimbledon in the Olympics in his GB team kit.
This is what DB is talking about, Football and Rugby are big enough to go it alone, but smaller sports do benefit from a bigger pool of players to draw on. Please note how he restrained himself to talking about cycling. It is up to you if you see an analogy between Team GB and the state. Scottish, English, Welsh, Irish, Kenyan, Better Together.
Well said, John Stevenson / road.cc, this isn't a decision to make based on potential competitive sports results - there's active discussion up here about how cycling policy may shift after the vote, but even that isn't central in this thing for me, a utility cycling Yes guy.
There isn't - Scottish transport policy including cycling is already decided from Holyrood, Welsh policy from Cardiff (exception is trunk road network in England & Wales still centralised), policy in England is down to DfT/Westminster.
Many devolved policies are largely shadowing UK policy or approach and may shift noticeably after independence. Much discussion of this - I can tell you, because I am up here. Not important point, take it or leave it, as preferred.
It's a very upbeat warm-hearted campaign so far, despite the media spin. We're all almost ready for a break from the topic though, I think it's fair to say! A party on Friday and Saturday, nice cup of tea on Sunday, then onto the nuts n bolts on Monday!
I have lived in the UK for nearly 50 years and only now, thanks to Alex and his merry men, I have realised what an awful place this is - quite depressing really. Mr Brailsford has every right to voice an opinion, as does everyone in the UK, this affects of all. It's not wrong to disagree and on Friday, independent or not, Scotland needs to get on with itself and the rest of the world. I thought cycling could be spared!
Big Ups Off Shore Dave! I sincerely hope that Scotland gets her independence from the Nationalistic Western Order of NAZI's in the British Regime. In cahoots with the POS scumbags here in the US. The U.S. Fourth Reich and the Euro Trans Global Tyranny despise Freedom and Liberty.
The Oligarchs in Brussels and the rest of the West want nothing more than to Control everyone and everything they can grab. The EU's ultimate goal is to abolish boarders, cultures and language and to create common Slave States throughout Europe, just like we have here in the U.S.
The subversive, corrupted Globalist leaders of the West need to be eradicated.
You Sir...Schumcksford...are a Royal Douche!
I always knew this punter was a fraud, now it's clear he also a scumbag in general.
The UK will probably survive without Scotland - the problem I see is a succession of independence votes and no UK left. Scotland on the other hand will struggle for years with the reality of being a state on its own (its athletes won't be able to compete at the next Olympics under a Scottish flag but will be using the Olympic flag as South Sudan had to do)
They'll still have UK citizenship and if they're any good they'll just sign up for the programme in the rest of the UK. That's what happens to all those countries situated around the USA. And the New Zealand Rugby team is chock full of south sea islanders with shiny new kiwi passports. It won't hurt the UK. Personally I'd ban the practice but the world doesn't work that way.
oozaveared, by all means have and share your opinion.
Dave is entitled to his as everyone else is. Why did he need to link up with the Better Together campaign to share his opinion, that is why I said it has nothing to do with him.
Why is he getting involved with a political group, just release a press statement himself....
Why not? He's entitled to express his opinion any way he wants. If he thinks his opinion matters (and I think he does) Then he may well have thought he'd express it in a way that most likely to have an effect by linking up with like minded people. This freedom of speech thing also entitles you to other freedoms as well.
I think he's wrong about the Union. I think we in England are better off without Scotland. Dave is entitled to disagree. I do think though that the rest of the UK will have it's pick of Scottish talent happy to wear UK or GB kit in return for the facilities and funding.
Its amazing how Sir Dave thinks that his opinion matters a toss to us voters in Scotland.
On Thursday, the people of Scotland get a unique opportunity to shun the corrupt ways of Westminster and start to shape a society that best reflects our needs and aspirations.
If Sir Dave would like to come here and live amongst us then great, otherwise I'd be as well listening to the opinion of an African bushman.
And its a big, fat Yes from me
And me and I am English and I live in England. But this idea that people involved in enterprises which are by nature "British" encompassing all the countries of the Union, who earn their living, invest their money, don't have the right to point out the consequences of Scottish Independence is perhaps a bad omen for the future. The rest of the UK will continue to have free speech and people will continue to have opinions on anything they want and express them whenever they want. I get the feeling from you that this might not be the case in an independent Scotland.
Top level sport is elitist (by its very nature) and very few actually benefit. It shouldn't even be a consideration in the debate.
Sounds like Better Together is desperately clutching at straws more than anything else.
I think that loads of cyclists and people that have taken up cycling have benefitted from the success of Team GB in cycling. As it happens I am an Englishman that would happily wave goodbye to Scotland and hope they vote yes, But actually quite a lot of things will change that people haven't even thought about. Of course the whole of GB is funding an elite programme and can pick riders from the whole of GB to be in the programme then that is likely to be a stronger and more succesful set up than the remainder of the UK pro rata funding the programme and only picking riders from England Wales and NI.
Brailsford speaks sense but I'm still keen to see the Scots go their own way.
As a Scot I have supported the Scottish national football team and cheered on Katie Archibald at the Commonwealth games but I have equally supported the British Lions and Sir Bradley Wiggins.
However, when coming to a decision on whether Scotland and it's people would be better as an independent country, I've got to admit, sporting unity is not a consideration.
My priority as a voter in this referendum is to see some of the poor kids in Glasgow who rely on food banks being better fed than whether or not an alumni from George Watson's College goes on to win several gold medals for the UK. That can come later.
On that day (Thursday 18th September 2014) I swore to them that I would bring them out of the land of Egypt into a land that I had searched out for them, a land flowing with milk and honey, the most glorious of all lands.
Ezekiel 20:6
I would very polity ask Dave to F8ck off.....it has nothing to do with him.
Scottish sport will thrive without the likes of British Cycling aiming all their money as the poster childs they want to do well.
He ran the elite programme for British Cycling of course he's entitled to an opinion. We all are. And we are entitled to express it thankyou very much including Dave Brailsford.
Hmmm, so Gkam84, have you ever commented on something that has nothing to do with you ?
That is beyond absurb. So only Scottish people, living in Scotland, are allowed an opinion on something that directly effects a handful of countries?
Another question. Excluding the Scolympians that trained in England, how many Scottish athletes have won medals over the previous few games? Chris Hoy himself has said he wouldn't have won as much if it wasn't for the British facilities and funding available.
What does Graeme Obree say?
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