GB: Best in the World!

 

2006 World Track Championships (Event Coverage)

UCI World Track Championships 2006
www.tissottiming.com

Based on the number of medals won overall, the Great Britain Cycling Team were the number 1 ranked nation at the completion of this years UCI Track Cycling Championships in Bordeaux (France). With six medals to their name, the riders in the Great Britain team did themselves and their team proud, especially after having been away for six weeks at the Commonwealth Games prior to the Worlds.

Go to British Cycling's Exclusive Coverage: 2006 World Track Championships

Medals Table (total medals won)

Great Britain: 6 (1 Gold, 4 Silver, 1 Bronze)
Australia: 5 (1 Gold, 2 Silver, 2 Bronze)
France: 5(2 Gold, 1 Silver, 2 Bronze)
Holland: 4 (3 Gold, 1 Silver)
Belarus: 3 (2 Gold, 1 Bronze)
Germany: 3 (2 Gold, 1 Bronze)
Spain: 3 (1 Gold, 1 Silver, 1 Bronze)

 

British Cycling spoke to the Great Britain Cycling Team's Performance director, Dave Brailsford (pictured above with Ian Stannard), and he said of his teams accomplishment "you have to look at these six medals in the context of the competitions we have ridden in the last three months. We prioritised the Commonwealth Games, performed well there and then it was an unknown for the Worlds because we had to hope the athletes could hold on to their form and see where it got us at the Championships here. If you had offered us before the Championships the results we got here, we'd have taken it."

"We showed that we are still competitive on the World stage by getting more medals than any other nation even though we didn't quite get the Golds that we won last time in Los Angeles. Look closely at the results though and you'll see the margins between winning Gold rather than Silvers is getting smaller than ever. The difference between us getting three Golds instead of Silvers was 0.336 of a second. So we have to be satisfied with our championships really."

This years championships also saw many young riders racing for their country: Nikki Harris, Geraint Thomas, Mark Cavendish, and Matthew Crampton to name but a few. It was a real mixture of senior athletes the team believes can carry the hopes of the country and the next Olympics with those young riders who have shown they have the ability to challenge for Olympic medals alongside their senior colleagues. Geraint Thomas in the Team Pursuit is an example of how the younger riders are being 'blooded' in a major competition to see how they handle it. One thing the team won't want to do is go into Beijing with riders who are not ready for that pressure.

 

 

Geraint Thomas leads during the Team Pursuit at the Worlds where he won his first senior medal, riding 8 seconds quicker than he had ever done before.

The race is on therefore to bring in those young riders the team feel are ready to challenge for places in the Olympic team. Talking about this, Dave Brailsford says "After the Commonwealth Games, we sat down and decided to blood a few youngsters and if they meant dropping a place in the medal table, or dropping off the podium, that was a sacrifice we were willing to make. So we put Geraint into the Team Pursuit and he rode admirably, the fastest a British 19 year old has ever gone so that was a great ride by him".

"We also brought Ian Stannard over along with Matt Crampton and Nikki Harris who are still developing well. They all stood up and performed very well. Matt Crampton did a 10.3 in the Sprint on the back of doing it in Melbourne so he has raised his game. So it's been very successful from that point of view."

"And we still have all the young riders coming through our Academy System and they're knocking on the door of the Senior team but I think if they haven't broken through by the Worlds in 2007, then it's getting so close to Beijing then, someone would have to push really hard to break into the Beijing team after that. It can be done and we know they are all very keen to break into this team and of course what it does is keep all the older lads on their toes. It's raising their game because they know these young lads are catching them up quick."

 

 

Numbers game: Head Coach Simon Jones, EIS physiologist Matt Parker and Performance Director Dave Brailsford discuss data taken during the World Track Championships.

A Role Model Programme
The GB Cycling Team's programme and the success it is reaping on the World stage is also making similar GB teams in other sports sit up and take notice. "What we have tried to do is create a rider support system that we feel is as good as any system in the World at taking a rider and getting them onto the World Championship podium as quickly as possible."

"It's not perfect and there are things that we still need to address but we believe in supporting riders and developing them in the carrot and not the stick approach." We are trying to hire the best people to work with us to support the riders, Psychology, Strength or Conditioning; and at the end of the day, it's a people business and you have to get good people who are willing to work hard and support riders to be the best they can be."

"I'm being asked more and more by other sports to go and speak at conferences. I went down and spoke to Swimming, did some work with Triathlon and they are interested in the structures we have put in place in terms of how to manage all the expert input. You might have six or seven people working with one rider and it's how you manage that without the rider getting mixed messages and ensure we're all singing from the same hymn sheet. You need to ensure communications are open and transparent and we have ways of doing that through our rider development team meetings, and the bi-weekly team meetings where all the experts come in and we look at the progress of every single rider on a case conferencing basis. And it works."

"I'm not saying this model would be successful in every other sport, but at the moment its standing us in good stead".

The success of our athletes has also seen the team get an increase in funding with a view to the riders bringing the country medal success at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics. Asked how that increase in funding will help the team to make itself even better, the performance director said "the money removes obstacles that could prevent us improving. It will allow us to do more analysis, more sports science and hopefully get more expertise and invest in technology for wheels, bikes and equipment. All these things are essential for us to do the job."

"It also gives us the opportunity to spend time on high risk speculative areas where we might make a gain but we might not and if we didn't have the level of funding we are getting, it's the type of area you wouldn't normally spend money on and I think that is a very positive step forward for us".

 

 

Shane Sutton and Steve Peters talking an event through with Victoria Pendleton.

 

The best of British Results at the World Championships

Gold:
Chris Hoy: Kilometre Mens Kilometre

Silver
Craig MacLean: Mens Sprint Mens Sprint
Victoria Pendleton: Womens Sprint Womens Sprint
Team Pursuit: Silver (Geraint Thomas, Rob Hayles, Paul Manning & Steve Cummings) Team Pursuit

Team Sprint: Silver: (Jamie Staff, Craig MacLean, Chris Hoy, Jason Queally.)Team Sprint


Bronze:
Paul Manning: Pursuit Mens Pursuit


Other Placings
4th, Victoria Pendleton: Womens 500 TT Day 1: Womens 500 TT
4th, Chris Newton: Mens Points Day 1: Mens Points
4th, Rob Hayles & Mark Cavendish: Madison Day 4: Mens Madison

5th, Wendy Houvenaghel; Womens Pursuit Day 1: Womens Pursuit
6th, Emma Davies; Womens Pursuit Day 1: Womens Pursuit

9, Ross Edgar; Mens Keirin Day 2: Mens Keirin
10, Matt Crampton; Mens Keirin Day 2: Mens Keirin

16th, Nikki Harris, Scratch raceDay 4: Womens Scratch
20th, Ian Stannard, Ind Pursuit. Mens Pursuit
20th, Nikki Harris, Points raceWomens Points

Mens Scratch Race (Mark Cavendish, dnf): Mens Scratch

Womens Keirin (Victoria Pendleton, dnf): Womens Keirin