Former national time trial champion Joanna Rowsell has joined Emma Pooley in criticising British Cycling for not selecting any riders to represent the country in Tuesday’s elite women’s time trial at the UCI Road World Championships in Ponferrada, won by Germany’s Lisa Brennauer.
The world and Olympic team pursuit champion, who yesterday helped Wiggle Honda win that event at the British National Track Championships, riding alongside Laura Trott, Dani King and Elinor Barker, told BBC Radio 4 the governing body was wrong not to give an up-and-coming rider the chance to “gain experience.”
"If every country took that attitude there would only be three girls at the start – because there are only three medals," said Rowsell, who leaves Wiggle Honda at the end of this season to join the Pearl Izumi Sports Tours International team.
"I think it's disappointing," the 25-year-old went on. "British Cycling has its selection policies which it has adhered to.
"Of course the argument is the experience side of things. There could be someone who's not going to medal this year, but they could perhaps in the future."
British Cycling insisted to BBC Sport it was "fully committed" to backing women riders at "all levels," but added: "Unfortunately, making difficult decisions and applying resources where there is the best chance of success is a dilemma that sport coaches worldwide have to face. Sometimes that means not fielding riders in every event.
"We are proud of our impressive record of supporting female athletes,” it went on. “British women won seven golds at London 2012 and eight at Beijing 2008. Since 2008, British women have won six medals at road worlds, including three golds since 2012 in junior categories."
Earlier this month, after British Cycling announced its long list of riders for Ponferrada, current national time trial champion Pooley, now retired from top-level cycling to focus on triathlon and running, took to Twitter to criticise the selection process.
Pooley, who won the world championship in the discipline said the decision not to enter any women in the elite time trial was founded on “poor reasoning. I didn’t have a medal chance at 1st Worlds. But experience helped later.”
British Cycling replied: “We would agree that it can be good experience, but our priority is to win medals and so we need to focus our resource on that.”
Yesterday’s men’s time trial saw Great Britain entering the two riders it was permitted, with Sir Bradley Wiggins clinching the rainbow jersey after a storming ride that saw him beat three-time winner Tony Martin by nearly half a minute, with the country’s other representative, Alex Dowsett, finishing 20th.
21 thoughts on “Joanna Rowsell says British women should have been in Worlds time trial”
She’s bang on. Not entering
She’s bang on. Not entering because not much chance of a medal. Do we pull the entire men’s RR team on that basis?
Bad decision by BC.
So what BC are saying is,
So what BC are saying is, unless we think we can win, we’ll not spend money, just in case we get our funding pulled due to a lack of success.
Using the same criteria, why
Using the same criteria, why was Dowsett selected? How was his chance of a medal judged?
Really how much does a plane
Really how much does a plane ticket cost? British cycling sends competitors to track events all the time, how does the cost of the World TT championships, in which we have a great record differ? And we sent under 23’s, including Melissa Lowther who finished 7th, she was there anyway and I’m sure would have relished the opportunity to ride twice. Doesn’t make any sense to me. And yes definitely not right!
BC are famous for measuring
BC are famous for measuring things to within an inch of their lives, so if they’re considering their resources as carefully as they say it ought to be the case that they’ve got actual numbers they looked at and said, “sorry, we can’t go that far”.
And I’d be interested to know those numbers, particularly the cost of taking the Roads squads, support staff and equipment out to the current WCs, and the difference that one extra rider and one extra bike would have made. And what would, say, Lucy Coldwell’s chance of a medal have been compared, to, say, our last placed rider in the MTB cross-country worlds?
If BC put hard figures on this and can demonstrate they’re being tough but fair then they’ll come out of it a lot better than the current arm-waving vagueness is doing.
Its like saying to women its
Its like saying to women its just not worth bothering with all the training….terrible decision.
They put Dowsett in for
They put Dowsett in for experience for the future, but didn’t do the same for the women riders.
Obviously sexual discrimination.
“our priority is to win
“our priority is to win medals and so we need to focus our resource on that”
Yeah, but medals when? BC is known for taking a long-term strategic view (see the sub-pace performances at many track world cup events, for example, because they know the riders are at a low point in the cycle but that doesn’t matter because they’re flying when it matters at the olympics), yet in this case they didn’t look past the end of their noses. Essentially, they didn’t see a medal in it for them this time, but couldn’t see any connection in performance/experience between this time and future events.
I’m going to play devils
I’m going to play devils advocate here… what is the point of sending someone to the worlds to get experience if there is no foreseeable chance of that rider ever reaching the level of challenging for a medal in that event?
You can realistically argue that Dowsett is a focused TT rider, has word class results in that discipline and with dedication to the event and a fair wind, could well get up there in the medals one day.
If anyone can show me a british women that can boast the same credentials, then I’ll accept that it was a sexist decision.
I however would suggest that there is no one currently able to medal, or with the inclination or potential to medal in future years. So… why bother giving them experience? So a cold, hard business decision.
Our region puts money aside to fund a regional junior team to ride a number of national events. That money has not been spent for the past two years as there is realistically no one of the standard that can take anything away from the experience provided that is not already in a national race team.
Ironically that particular money has been poured into supporting women’s racing.
Jimmy Ray Will wrote:If
There are a number of women who could have had a chance at medaling, but with the track champs being on at the same time, made them unavalible.
Joanna Rowsell and Katie Archibald being two of those.
Sharon Laws, who was in the provisional list, but yet again BC left her out, she was actually at the race, got herself there and everything. Only to not be selected.
Then look at riders like Emma Pooley, who moved away from cycling, BC could have convinced her to give the TT one last go, she was champion World TT champion and has also had a couple of podiums.
British Cycling is NOT fit for purpose when it comes to the womens side of the sport. Things will be changing in the not to distance future….watch this space 😉 😉
Gkam84 wrote:
There are a
I’d counter that with…
Joanna Rowsell – lack of inclination… there is no doubt about Joanna’s talent, but she has not demonstrated any intention to focus on road TT’s at this stage.
Katie Archibald – slightly trickier as she did medal at the TT nationals, but her focus has always been the track, and unless that is fundamentally changing any time soon, there is no need to ‘invest’ in her TT future.
Emma Pooley – inclination. She has retired. I think its a long shot to blame BC for not forcing someone not to retire. I support Emma’s motivations, however her results and ability would support a reasonable income if she stuck at the sport, she simply didn’t want it any more… especially when her talents can earn greater returns in other sports.
Sharon Laws – no offence to Sharon, but at 40, there is little undiscovered ‘potential’ there… if she could medal this year… yep she should go, if not, then no point.
I don’t necessarily agree with not sending representatives to the worlds, but I think this is less about sexism and more about brutal policies that are equally applied across the board.
Ok then in for a penny.
If BC
Ok then in for a penny.
If BC spend money sending people to just be in a race they don’t have a chance in just for *hits and giggles then that money can’t be spent on making sure that when a British rider is in a race they can win, that they get all the backup they need.
Going back to basic principles it would be the hard nosed question about efficient use of resources. It almost certainly would be along the lines of Brailsford’s model of accumulating marginal gain. ie not “wasting” money on just turning up for the heck of it, is a marginal gain in the task of spending money in order to win medals.
A bit hard nosed but then again a hard nosed approach that has brought significant success.
Don’t you think experience
Don’t you think experience would provide a marginal gain?
Wish ‘Road CC ‘ would feature
Wish ‘Road CC ‘ would feature more woman apart from the usual few. They do stories about chaps from different teams and countries so why not women?
I think the Devil’s Advocacy
I think the Devil’s Advocacy is reasonable, but there are still questions that could be better answered.
One name suggested is Lucy Coldwell, currently 29 which puts her at 31 for Rio in an endurance sport where the current British champion is 31, world men’s champ Wiggins is 34, and with most of the others (as quite rightly noted) concentrated on track that may well be a good bet. She was on the long list for the Road Race and came 7th in the Nationals and 8th in the Commonwealth TT so is not obviously a make weight.
I would agree with best use of resources, and while I’m not an expert in UK ladies’ TT I do think Jo Rowsell might have some idea about it as a former national champion, and that carries the sort of weight where BC would really be doing everyone (themselves included) a favour if they put out some numbers to back up what they say. Is Coldwell (or another alternative) demonstrably more expensive and/or less likely to get a top 3 than some of the less successful MTB XC folk who were sent to Norway? If that’s the case and I can see some hard numbers I’ll be happier, so let’s have the hard numbers.
Stupid stupid and stupid! How
Stupid stupid and stupid! How to demotivate in one simple action. To win medals you need all the usual things like talent etc. but you also need experience. The medals will dry up without bringing new riders in to replace others. So nobody will be entered in anything following that philosophy!
Melissa Lowther came 7th in
Melissa Lowther came 7th in the Junior ITT; perhaps she’s one for the future. But BC will probably push her towards the track too.
We didn’t have any representatives in last year’s Elite Women ITT either.
Ghostie wrote:Melissa Lowther
Not a chance, she’s with Stef Wyman on the Matrix Vulpine team, he looks after his riders and doesn’t just bow to British Cycling 😉
Gkam84 wrote:Ghostie
Not a chance, she’s with Stef Wyman on the Matrix Vulpine team, he looks after his riders and doesn’t just bow to British Cycling 😉— Ghostie
That’s a relief then.
We did have Emma Pooley
We did have Emma Pooley booked last year but she was at the crux of her thesis write-up and decided against it.
But this time around they had plenty of warning she wouldn’t be there.
Interesting perspective on
Interesting perspective on this from Lizzie Armitstead:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/cycling/11122441/Lizzie-Armitstead-rounds-on-British-Cyclings-critics-as-she-prepares-for-world-championships-road-race.html
BTW the UCI has confirmed dates for 2015 Women’s Tour – 17th to 21st June. B-)