Rivals question Team GB Olympic cycling success

What I find interesting is the rise of Team GB athletes since the more stringent doping policies were put in place, and the fall of the "once great" nations who now have a severe case of sour grapes ... y'know, if we're going to start throwing accusations around willy nilly ...

Armstrong's crew used the privacy of the team mechanical truck to do blood transfusions while the crowd looked on outside. Can hardly accuse the keirin girls of that.

It's simple, other teams train to do well year in year out at every major race and championship. Team GB focuses on 2 weeks every 4 years to get everything right. Imagine the whinging if we turned up to every championships with our team on Olympic form!

You know what - they might all be cheats.  But if it turns out they're all cheats then I'll be the first to put my hand up and say "yep: fooled."  I simply don't think they are - and not through ridiculous patriotism, I just don't see anything about any of the GB riders that looks 'suspect'.  

Unlike certain other riders who have 'unusual' physiology - for instance male and female riders with statistically exceptional muscle growth (I'm not casting aspersions: this may perfectly well be due to natural genetic/biological 'gifts'), the British all look like humans too.

I love the French guy's quote.  “We are human beings like them, we are made of the same stuff, we have a bike like they do, so why are they better?” That's the $64k question isn't it.  It's easy enough: solve that one, win some gold.  

The other interesting thing last night in the points race was that only Laura Trott and one, maybe two others were wearing aero helmets.  The others had road helmets with lots of ventilation.  If ever there was a self-evident marginal gain, there's one - "I'll boil my head and fight to keep it together for half an hour or so, but I will be faster, and I will use less energy, and I will win".  She was quite clearly boiling when she took her helmet off, but she had a big smile for a very good reason.

The questions are hardly surprising given cyclings history. But as said BC is basically funded to win Olympic medals, not World Champs. Anything that comes along the way is a bonus but it would appear that GB don't even use the "best" latest kit at WCs.

And to be honest when GB started posting Olympic & World Record times in qualifiers I think a lot of the competition dropped their heads. And maybe that was the plan.

Look at Laura last night in the points race - she seemed to be on fire into the last 10 laps and I was screaming for her to really apply the cosh and win the final sprint but looking at her she was totally banjaxed. But up to then she looked to be cruising which must have done the crunch for a lot of her competiton.

It isn't just physicality that wins races, it's mentality. And possibly more so. Look at Cav in France. Wins stage one and off he goes.

For the Olympic squad I think (as it did in London) ones success just reinforced the others belief in themselves.

It sort of makes sense, albeit in a slightly un-sporting way: what gets most interest from the non-cycling public and will get the most people interested / participating in cycling? The Olympics.

So the Lottery Funding goes to sports, and areas of those sports, that will give the best "return on investment" - they even have a "medals target" to meet if they want to maintain the same level of funding.

So having a four-yearly training cycle, and pouring Lottery Funding into the highest-profile cycling event most members of the public could name, makes sense in that way and will have collateral benefits to cycling as a whole. It's the same with Athletics, Gymnastics and probably most other sports with strong Lottery investment - it's seen as an investment. We'll give you money as long as you can show a worthwhile return.

That's why there's an Olympic development programme rather than just a British Cycling development programme.

What if in other competitions like the worlds team GB arent giving it full gas lulling the enemy in to a false sense of security then smashing it at the olympics 

And, seeing as Vogel was beaten by Becky James in 2013 but beat her to Gold in last nights Sprint Final, maybe we should be questioning how she did it...

No? Didn't think so.

"But beaten rivals will continue to ask questions."

Key word there - Beaten. Get over it, stop eating sour grapes and train better for next time. I think that's the point of sport, isn't it?

Cheating, in cycling, never...I've not heard of any precident and I am surprised other teams could even contemplate this!

Some of this coverage seems to be looking for fire when it's not even clear there was any smoke - more just some frustrated people letting off steam.

If I was a rival of Team GB in the velodrome, I'm sure I'd be pretty sore and perplexed too.

One way or another team GB are doing the same things as their rivals, just better.

I have found in my life that people can be guilty of what they are accusing others of, Carl Lewis accusing Ben Johstone is one of many.