Brian’s Olympic Blog Day 8 – She’s the Queen and they’re the Kings

Brian’s Olympic Blog Day 8 – She’s the Queen and they’re the Kings

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British Cycling President Brian Cookson OBE was there at the velodrome yesterday to witness a wall to wall, world beating performance from Great Britain's cyclists.

There’s a fantastic old Van Morrison song called “Queen of the Slipstream”. Have a listen if you don’t know it. You can guess who I think of when I hear it. Here’s an extract of the lyrics;

You're the Queen of the slipstream
With eyes that shine
You have crossed many waters to be here
You have drank of the fountain of innocence
And experienced the long cold wintry years.
There's a dream where the contents are visible
Where the poetic champions compose
Will you breathe not a word of this secrecy, and
Will you still be my special rose?

To me those words somehow ring so true for Victoria Pendleton. There was indeed “a dream where the contents were visible”. The pressure of being a multiple world champion and a defending Olympic Champion saw to that.

As we all learned from the recent television documentary she has “experienced the long cold wintry years”. To see Vicky come back from the first day’s disappointment, to totally dominate the Women’s Keirin was just so great. She’s back from those wintry years, there’s no doubt about that. Quite simply she imposed her will on each of the three rounds, completely outclassing her opponents.

And the way she did it was just so beautiful. Her positioning and tactical sense were perfect to behold. And once she hit the front there was no doubt about where that Gold Medal was going. This “poetic champion” certainly did “compose” something very special indeed. Truly Vicky, you are indeed the Queen of the Slipstream, our special rose, and we love you so.

And if Vicky is the Queen then our Team Pursuiters are certainly the Kings of the Slipstream. Ed Clancy, Steven Burke, Geraint Thomas and Pete Kennaugh set not just a new World Record, but a whole new benchmark for what is possible in their event. An astonishing time of 3 minutes 51.659 seconds that pretty much blew the poor Aussies out of the Olympic Park, let alone the stadium.

When you think that it wasn’t that long ago that a sub 4 minute ride was the aim, and that when Dave Brailsford and the coaches set a target of 3.55 for Beijing it was thought by many to be unattainable.....well, a 3.51 ride is just utterly wonderful. To me and the capacity crowd that were raising that beautiful roof, it just looked like perfection. But no doubt coach Dan Hunt and the guys are already thinking about how to get to the sub 3.50 mark!

So two Gold Medals were there to be won, and the result was a 100% outcome for Great Britain. After we won 7 out of the 10 track Golds in Beijing, I really thought it couldn’t happen again. Then when the programme was changed, I certainly believed we would struggle to get anywhere near that number. But now......well, let’s not tempt providence, but you have to say things are looking pretty good. Just look at the time put up by the Women Team Pursuiters in their qualifying round. There’s no-one in the same street, so far as I can see. But let’s not count our chickens.......

More tomorrow.

Brian