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Brian’s Olympic Blog – Friday 15 August 2008

 

Team Pursuit

Paul Manning, Ed Clancy, Geraint Thomas and Bradley Wiggins! Gold!

 

For Gold

Great Britain versus Denmark

 

The big for the day! GB start in the home straight after going fastest in the round 1. This will be Bradley Wiggin’s sixth 4,000 metre race and he apparently has increased his gear for the final. Sutton outs a towel down on the line so the riders can see whether they are up or down on a schedule.

 

The riders appear more nervous than they are normally as they wait to go to their bikes on the start line. Manning, like Wiggins, has won a Bronze and a Silver in this event already. Off they go, Ed Clancy leads GB away, GB lead at lap 1 and lap 2 and the Danes are resisting but GB are continuing to open up the gap.

 

The gap starts to open to a second, then two seconds and then the GB riders can see the Danes in their sight as they go down to three. GB then go down to three as Paul Manning swings up knowing the job has been down. The final three GB riders go for the finish and on the line, record an awesome, unbelievable time of 3.53 for the 4k. Out of this world!

 

Ed Clancy:  Any Nerves?  "As always, but we knew we were the best team out here. It was far from a formability but we knew we should win this and we had to go out and put them away and although we didn’t see that time coming, it was pretty special.”

Paul Manning: “This was the pinnacle really. We have world titles several times but this is really satisfying to go out on such a high. G enjoys going faster, but we needed to make sure we won the medal and these four guys are fantastic. It's like a family”   

 

Bradley Wiggins. “This is phenomenal. I wasn’t my usual self yesterday after the IP. I was really disappointed to feel like because I didn’t want to let these guys down. I was on the back foot yesterday and didn’t want to let them down because I know how much these guys have sacrificed for this one event and they are happy for me to go off and do my individual stuff. G could potentially have won a medal in the individual and if we had both done it, we may not have made it to the final.”

 

“To be part of this team is fantastic. We have come a long way in four years. To put that into perspective, that time is 11 seconds faster than the record we set in Sydney in 2000 and 11 seconds is long way in the team pursuit.”  On his second Gold medal, he says “I set out to do that, I believed I could do that, but to actually do it is another thing and it is such a relief when you finally do it.”

 

On the Madison and whether he still has the legs for that, he says “I hope so. I have trained for that and I know I was back to my usual self tonight after along sleep last night until Cav woke me playing silly buggers! So another 24 hours and a good sleep and I am back in here with Cav and we’ll give it a good shot.”

3.53 for 4 kilometres World and Olympic Record -- Amazing, really amazing. They however have trained for it and although they never did a 4k training effort at that pace, they showed in Beijing they are quite simply The Best.

 

For Bronze

New Zealand versus Australia

First on to the track this is the battle of Down Under. Luke Roberts has come into the team  for Brad McGee. Very close at lap 1 and New Zealand lead with a 1.03.5 kilometre but hundredths splitting the two of them. Two tenths between them as they come into the second  K but the pressure told on the Aussies and they lost a rider, Brown and the riders in black continued to go away from their rivals and take the medal with a time of 3.57. The Aussies are fourth and that will hurt them because results like that are brutal especially when you train for four years for one event.