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Cycling gets a 21.5% increase in its Olympic budget...

by mst
Wed, Dec 03, 2008 18:06
4

Now nearly 27 million quid, second only to rowing (!) and more than athletics!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympic_games/7761495.stm

Nice...

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cactuscat | 15 years ago
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if there's 21.5% more medals to be won... 1 1
seriously though, good news. always good to back a winner. i see they're throwing money at basketball too... 39 39

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Tony Farrelly replied to cactuscat | 15 years ago
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cactuscat wrote:

if there's 21.5% more medals to be won... 1 1 seriously though, good news. always good to back a winner. i see they're throwing money at basketball too... 39 39

Think you make a good point, British Cycling invested its last lot of money wisely when it came to ensuring a good harvest of medals concentrating on events with the least number of variables involved in winning.  

Power events where if you post a PB or produce max watts and your PB is better than everyone else's - you win. They were also lucky that  in two of the events that are not just about power and are much less predictable in their outcomes, BMX and road racing, they had two of the talents of their generation in Nicole Cooke and Shandze Reade. There may be more variable at play in a road race than the track sprint, but if you have the best talent you're always in with a chance. 

At the moment you can't see anyone beating the Brits in the power events on the track, Reade will probably be well up for the BMX, Cooke should still be at the top of her game, but on the road in a one-off race that's no guarantee of winning ditto for Cavendish if he rides the men's road race.

To get the return being asked the British cycling team have got to  win all the events they won in Beijing plus two more. So what else is there? The Madison - pretty much a lottery, the points race (men's and women's) - again a massive amount of variables, men's BMX, and Mountain biking… hmm, maybe. 

That is asking a lot, but you wouldn't bet against the set up at British Cycling delivering again. They must have known that winning big in Beijing would raise expectations for London, but that's the price of success - which is a nice problem to have.

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radar replied to Tony Farrelly | 15 years ago
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It is a very long way to fall though... not that I think BC will fall, but the Aussies and Danes (amongst others) are trying to replicate BC. How long before other nations have caught up with the British powerhouse, or will BC's domination turn other nations off?

Ruminate fiercely, as my old history master put it 3

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Tony Farrelly replied to radar | 15 years ago
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 Others will surely strive to match and better the BC program, but even if another country started to really throw many at it now it's asking a hell of a lot to come up to the British mark in one Olympic cycle - you'd expect an up and coming nation to have shown something on the track at Beijing.

The Aussies were in there pomp at Athens but the GB team still managed to bag some big wins. Nobody really showed in Beijing like that, plus any contenders would surely need to be coming good at junior level? I'm no expert but it seems to me that BC's juniors look as awesome as the seniors and that they've established something of a production line of talent.

Whatever I'm sure no-one will give up, they will close the gap and BC will probably need that extra dosh just to maintain the level of success they enjoyed in Beijing - hopefully that won't be classed as a relative failure. The big worry then would what happens after London… hopefully cycling will be so entrenched in the national sporting consciousness that there will be no question of cutting its funding. 

Hopefully.

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