Says distance means team might give races a miss
Following what was a quieter performance than was anticipated in the world track championships in Apeldoorn, British Cycling’s high performance director Dave Brailsford has suggested that the country could sidestep next year’s worlds.
The riders will try to land the strongest results possible at the London Olympics, and will face pressure in both competing on home soil and also in trying to match the stunning 2008 haul.
The country won seven gold medals out of ten events in Beijing, as well as three silvers and two bronzes.
One year earlier it highlighted form and potential when it grabbed seven golds, two silvers and two bronze medals at the world championships in Mallorca.
This time round, at what is a comparable point in the Olympic cycle, the haul was rather more modest: one gold, three silver and five bronze medals.
Brailsford has said that he isn’t panicking, but behind the scenes it is likely that British Cycling is concerned by both its own showing and also the dominant display of arch-rivals Australia.
Next year’s worlds will be held in Melbourne, and Brailsford has now suggested that the championship might need to be put aside.
“Whether we need to go all the way across the world just a few months before London is questionable,” he told BBC Sport.
If the team does miss the event, it will lack a real-life benchmark against the other countries. It would be a big gamble to lose out for this reason, but Brailsford is considering the option anyway.
In the meantime, he’s playing down talk that the worlds wasn’t good for British Cycling. “From our point of view, it is satisfactory,” he told BBC Sport. “We’ve raised the bar so high that when we don’t win gold, people imagine there is a problem. The team is quietly confident.”
“We will put our foot down over the next 15 months and hopefully we’ll be OK by the time we get to London.”