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British Cycling's Olympic Home Page Bryan Steels 's Final Olympic Showdown
This morning, Sunday August 22, in Athens, the quest for a Gold medal started for Rugby's Bryan Steel. The 2004 Olympic Games will be the cyclist's last Olympics and his chance to finally win Gold after countless silver medals in World Championships and Commonwealth Games. The bronze medallist from the Sydney Olympics was seriously considering retirement a few years ago but the management at Team GB soon talked him out of that and since then, he has been riding better than ever. Bryan's event is the Team Pursuit, where four cyclists, race at speeds of 60kph plus around the banked velodrome, each of them taking a turn at the front for a lap before going to the back of the group to rest before working their way to the front again. Its an event which demands great skill to stay as close to the rider in front without touching wheels and gets harder as fatigue takes it toll as they reel off lap after lap. Right: Bryan concentrates at a dress rehersal for the Olympic Team Pursuit. As Bryan admits, the type of team mate you want in such an event is someone who can not only ride their bike at speeds which few people can sustain for more than a few seconds if at all, but also someone who would rather fall off than let the wheel in front go and in doing so, let their team mates down. Quite simply, these riders will die for each other on that track. Days before he was due to leave for Athens, I caught up with Bryan at the Great Britain Olympic Track Cycling team's holding camp in Newport, Wales. The riders were based in the Celtic Manor Resort, a five star hotel and in the three days I spent with the team, I would regularly see Bryan seeking space on his own, lap top in hand catching up with family and friends. This was a lot different to the same holding Olympic camps in Barcelona, Atlanta and Sydney where he was away from family for long periods. Riders in Newport were very relaxed and Bryan was pleased to be close to home saying "This is a lot better being near to home. There is a lot of playing around with equipment which means you can nip home to get it and the Celtic Manor is a fantastic facility. Things here are pretty relaxed and low key at the moment and I don't think people will get nervous until they get to Athens now." Bryan even went as far as saying it was an ideal location prior to such a major competition with few of the distractions you get in other holding camps with all the other athletes from other sports and the media milling about looking for 'victims'. "In the past" he explained "there have always been compromises so this is as good as it gets. We can see family & friends, and it also makes the trip seem a little bit shorter, like a month trip split into two, two week trips." On the weekend before the serious training started again on the track, Bryan was able to invite his wife Dawn down to the resort where they could go out and relax in a way that would have been impossible at the previous Olympic Games he has competed in. Newport though was not just about being able to relax and taper down for the big day. The team gathered at the Celtic Manor Resort on August 1 which meant they had 22 days before their part in the Olympics was to begin. To keep the riders fresh mentally, the coach was mixing the training up by having them ride on the road for a few days before bringing them indoors again for three days on the track. "Its changing day-by-day" Bryan explained when asked about training. "There is a lot of team pursuiting of course but the main difference is we have done away with what we class as 'rubbish riding'. Instead of going out on the road in the morning easy and then coming back and going to the track, now we do four or five efforts on the track and if the coach sees our performances dropping off, he calls it day."
Bryan says that the advantage of being at Newport, besides the great hotel, is that they can have more track time. As I have seen myself at major championships, the time teams get on the track is strictly limited simply due to the number of teams vying for time on the velodrome. In general, teams are only given an hour to use the track each day along with two or three other teams. By staying at Newport in Wales until the last minute, the team can have long afternoons on the track having to only share it with their cycling team mates. The longer sessions mean that the stints on the track can be choreographed as well so the riders rest for the same amount of time they would get at the Olympics between rounds of their event and the whole session can be a realistic rehearsal for the big day. Even to the point where as a photographer, I was allowed by the coach to 'get in the way' as photographers normally would at a major championship. Once on the track, the riders, dressed in full Olympic attire and with their latest equipment from the UK Sports Institute, did not dilly dally about. It was a full on, high speed session with the riders faces telling the same story as they do in major championships. It was hurting - a lot. Probably more so because despite one of the country's hottest days outside, the heaters inside were turned up to maximum. There were those in the stands watching who were soon leaving as a fear of fainting set in whilst the riders carried on at breakneck speeds around the track. This is what the public at large don't get to see and it was far from glamorous. Talking about these intense sessions, Bryan said "The intensity is there and we won't really back off the intense efforts until we hit Athens. Your concentration levels have to be pretty high to do these as well. In the past we have tried to do a week of them but it just doesn't work and so we're finding its better to do three days proper, go away on the road and then do another three days". The intensity of the efforts on the road away from the velodrome isn't any less though. Whether its 10 miles flat out on their own, or a group ride at 30mph or faster for two hours, the riders are piling on the hard work because there is only one recipe for success for this team, and that's a structured training program backed up by the best coaches and equipment in the world. With many sections of the media continuing to talk incessantly about the doping problems in sport, this team rides free of such products and is keen to emphasis this 'clean' policy. Having unprecedented access to the team denied to the public and media at large to limit the amount of distractions the team have, means I was able to see what makes this team that Bryan is a part of, tick. All of the food consumed by the riders is no different to the food the public can buy in their local supermarket. Fresh fruit and vegetables and cereal bars are there to stave off hunger and when on the bike, the riders get Lucozade Sport gels which are also widely available in the high street. The only really high tech products in a team which is keen to get away from the use of sporting supplements comes in the form of drinks to help them recover and rehydrate and these come from GSK, manufacturers of Lucozade Sport. Bryan and his team mates success at World and Olympic level is quite simply a product of intense work and great team support. As well as having sport scientists in the team looking to help them cool down after their events, they have mechanics keeping their bikes in the best possible shape, coaches to organise their training and masseurs to rub away the pain from the efforts on the track. Thanks to this support borne out of lottery funding, the most difficult thing Bryan has to do outside of training is to find somewhere to sit and relax. In a hotel such as the Celtic Manor which has given the riders their own lounge, chilling out comes easy though and Bryan is confident everything is on track for Athens.
Above: Chris Newton, Rob Hayles, Bryan Steel and Paul Manning win silver at the Worlds. If ever there was an event they want Gold more than any other, its the Olympic Team Pursuit. Good luck to Bryan and all the team in Athens. "Everyone is going well" he told me after a tough session on the track. "We need five strong men for this event and having six is great because it keeps us pushing ourselves. We can all slot in and do the job" he added finally. One thing is for certain, the team that won a bronze medal in Sydney 2000, is significantly better four years on. Bryan is faster than he has ever been and backing him up is Bradley Wiggins (World Individual Pursuit Champion in 2003), Paul Manning (4th in the 2003 Worlds) and Rob Hayles (silver medalist in 2004). Then they have Chris Newton who was World Points champion in 2002 and Steve Cummings who has made significant improvements in the last two months. The team quite simply is a realistic Gold medal prospect and after qualifying where the Team with Bryan finished 2nd fastest in a very controlled rider, they are on course to fight for gold against Australia in the next round. There a re few differences between Sydney (bronze) and now. Some of that team retired and new blood (Steven Cummings) has been brought in. The equipment has also moved on. They have new bikes for example because when the team went looking for the ultimate 'weapon' in their fight for gold, they were unable to find one - so they had their own built thanks to lottery funding and a formula 1 place in Nottingham. First came the bikes which have been used for a number of years now and then this year, new handlebars, forks and what the mechanics call lenticular wheels. For many years, the team have used the same wheels as most of the world class teams, Mavic. But now they have their own made and the riders like Bryan approve - big time! "Its fantastic" Bryan said when we talked about the equipment. "As soon as we jumped on the wheels, people could notice the difference and the handlebars too are fantastic." "The steering is not as sharp now "Bryan explained. "People had problems steering the bike up the track and steering the bike down but now you can steer the bike with your hips which took a few days to get used to. The best wheels on the market are the Mavics but they are heavy wheels and all the weight is on the rim which means but it takes a lot of energy to get the thing going. These wheels, all the weight is in the hub, and they strong so its easier to get going". GREAT BRITAIN OLYMPIC TEAM IN BREIF Rider (potential events) Oli Beckingsale (Mens Mountain Biking) Nicole Cooke (Women's Road Race) Steve Cummings: (Team Pursuit) Stuart Dangerfield: (Men's Road Time Trial) Emma Davies: (Womens Individual Pursuit/Womens Points Race) Ross Edgar: (Sprint, Keirin) Roger Hammond: (Mens Road Race) Rob Hayles: (Mens Individual Pursuit/Team Pursuit/Madison) Rachel Heal: (Womens Road Race) Chris Hoy: (Kilo/Team Sprint) Jeremy Hunt: (Mens Road Race) Liam Killeen: (Mens Mountain Biking) Craig MacLean: (Kilo/Team Sprint) Paul Manning: (Mens Individual Pursuit/Team Pursuit) Chris Newton: (Team Pursuit/Mens Points Race) Victoria Pendleton: (500TT/Womens Sprint) Jason Queally: (Kilo/Team Sprint) Jamie Staff: (Kilo, Team Sprint, Keirin) Bryan Steel: (Team Pursuit) Sara Symington: (Womens Road Race) Charly Wegalius: (Mens Road Race) Bradley Wiggins: (Individual Pursuit/Team Pursuit/Madison) Julian Winn: (Mens Road Race)
The Great Britain Cycling Team for the Paralympics Tandems
(click for bios) Aileen
McGlynn - 22.06.73/Glasgow Ian
Sharpe - 27.10.70/Ramsey, Isle of Man Solos Gary Williams - 05.03.68/Bickerstaffe, Lancs
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