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Team GB women's team pursuit team, Rio 2016 (copyright Britishcycling.org_.uk).jpgRivals question Team GB Olympic cycling success
Responding to questions and veiled accusations from Team GB’s rivals, British Cycling’s head coach has said that a lot of teams “simply haven’t shown up” at the Olympics. Ian Dyer added that the British squad peaks for the Olympics not only athletically, but also when it comes to research and innovation.
Australian sprinter Anna Meares, a 2012 gold medal winner, has been among those perplexed by British success. Speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald, she said:
“The British are just phenomenal when it comes to the Olympic Games, and we’re all just scratching our heads going: ‘How do they lift so much when in so many events they have not even been in contention in the world championships?’
“It’s been tough because you come in here with hope, and you come in here with strong performances at world level for a number of years and then at the Olympic Games it seems like you’re just not in competition with that nation. So they’ve got it together, and to be honest I’m not exactly sure what they’ve got together.”
Meares won bronze in the keirin this year behind GB’s silver medallist, Becky James, but could only manage 10th in the individual sprint. She was perhaps one of those to whom Dyer was referring when he spokes about athletes who were “simply not at their best.”
Laura Trott and Jason Kenny seal 'golden couple' status at Rio
Speaking to The Guardian, he said: “If you look at some of the times that have been done here, some of the teams simply haven’t shown up. That’s the bottom line … Some of the people here are not even performing at the level of the world championships.”
Meares has since tweeted: “I would like to clarify that I never said or insinuated that #TeamGB are cheating or doing anything suspicious!”
A brief statement attached to that tweet reads: “What I said was, it makes me scratch my head to think how we can be better competitive with them at the Olympics. That’s what great rivals, champions and teams like GBR do. They’re an amazing team and their athletes and staff deserve the success that’s come their way.”
Dyer emphasised that for Team GB, the Olympics is the overwhelming focus and a time when many different strands come together.
“While we peak athletically for the Olympics, we also peak in our research and innovation for the Olympics … The helmets we are using here, for example, we used in 2012 but haven’t used them since 2012 until now. The bikes obviously are new, the first time. And no end of different components and strategies are only appearing for the first time.”
This, of course, is understandable. Much of the cycling team’s huge budget hinges on Olympic performance. The £30.2m handed over by UK Sport also dwarfs the £18.6m allocated to Australia’s cyclists.
GB women smash the team pursuit
Indulging himself with a ‘marginal gains’ reference, Dyer said that his team effectively had the luxury of being able to focus on every detail.
“We’ve got a really great team of people doing a fantastic job and who will go to the ends of the earth looking for that final marginal gain. It’s all about marginal gains, isn’t it? That’s what we have become famous for. The low-hanging fruit disappeared years ago. There was a lot of talk of people catching up because they just saw the gains that we had started to make was stuff they could copy and emulate. Now the devil is in the detail. The marginal gains have never been more marginal and aggregating that together has never been more important.”
But beaten rivals will continue to ask questions. French cyclist Michael D’Almeida, part of the sprint trio that came third to Jason Kenny, Callum Skinner and Philip Hindes, said: “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?”
Kristina Vogel, part of the gold medal winning German team sprint squad in 2012, seemingly went even further. Describing the Brits as ‘cannon fodder’ at other competitions since London 2012, she said: “I don’t want to accuse anyone of anything, but it’s certainly questionable. They come en masse at this high level and I have no idea how they do it.”
Vogel wondered out loud whether the Brits perhaps didn’t train for three years before concluding: “They must be doing something right.”
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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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 ...
Yes, that is an interesting observation isn't it!
Coincidence that Team GB as a whole has won more medals in this Olympics than the previous one, when we are missing a great number of athletes who have been banned.
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.
I've got a bike too! Where's my medal!?
Maybe this is the point - Kenny doesn't look like the kind of beast that we have traditionally associated with a successful match sprinter (think Bauge, Hoy, etc). So what makes him faster than the bigger lads?
In light of the history of cycling (and many other sports - athletics, I am looking at you), it's legitimate to raise the issue. It's unfortunate for the individuals involved, doubly so if they are clean, but the public has been burnt before believing in miracles and conversion breeds zealotry (so some innocents will go to the stake).
Although it made me a bit sick in my mouth to watch, GB were head and shoulders above the RoW and (as there isn't any evidence that anyone doped) deserve the praise being heaped upon them. But as I struggle with GB victories, I would definitely prefer to forget about the whole thing, so if we could avoid speaking about it again that would be much appreciated.
'If they are clean'?!
Make sure you spit that sick in your mouth all over your own shoes, there's a good fellow.
We still have the roundest wheels.
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.
I think that a fair number of those cyclists wearing what looked like road helmets had the vents covered with the increasingly common (transparent) aeroshell cover
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.