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Prospects bright for Olympic joy after World Cup haul
British Cycling performance director Dave Brailsford is confident his charges are timing their run to the Olympic Games to perfection.
Great Britain won seven medals from 10 Olympic events – four gold, one silver and two bronze – plus Joanna Rowsell’s gold in the non-Olympic individual pursuit at the Track World Cup, which finished on Sunday, in a competition which doubled as the 2012 Games test event.
And Brailsford, who masterminded Britain’s haul of seven gold medals from 10 events in Beijing in 2008, hailed his team as the Olympic track programme approaches from August 2 to 7.
“This is the best performance across the board for a good couple of years,” said Brailsford.
“It shows we’re building momentum, we’re heading in the right direction and hopefully we’ve got our timing right.
“We’re definitely moving forward and we’re a lot closer in some events than maybe we thought. It’s very pleasing.
“If we can build on this momentum then it could be good fun.”
Brailsford has repeatedly said that – partially as a result of changes to the Olympic track programme – replicating the haul from China is unlikely. However, if the London competition was about managing expectation, the displays only served to fuel it.
Brailsford said: “It can’t be any higher than it was already. After Beijing the expectation’s always been there. But it’s only something in your mind, it’s not tangible.
“You can decide whether you want to feel anxiety or pressure or not. We don’t, so I’m not worried about the expectation.”
A 6,000-capacity partisan crowd roared every revolution made by a Briton and Brailsford believes the experience was invaluable.
He added: “It’s very difficult to quantify the effect of a home velodrome and home crowd. I think we’ve seen some of it this weekend – it does make a difference.”
Sir Chris Hoy led from the front with a haul of two individual gold medals – in the Keirin and sprint – and a team sprint bronze to demonstrate that, although his 36th birthday is fast approaching, his talent remains formidable.
Brailsford praised Hoy and the performances of the team pursuit squads – the women won gold in a world record time, the men finished runners-up to Australia – the women’s team sprint squad of Victoria Pendleton and Jess Varnish and the coming of age of 19-year-old Laura Trott, who won team pursuit gold and omnium bronze.
“Where they were at the Europeans (clocking 4:01.475 last October to win gold), it wasn’t their best performance,” said Brailsford of the men’s team pursuit squad of Ed Clancy, Geraint Thomas, Steven Burke and Peter Kennaugh.
“If you just take our performance, where it was and where it is now, they have made big strides forward and they’re going to continue to get better.”
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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