Wendy Houvenaghel claims she suffered “bullying” and “ageism” at British Cycling

Ya think?
Medal targets are medal targets. There was no distinction between male or female medals.
Paralympic medal targets were seperate from the Olympics.

i dont follow this stuff to well. but it appears to me that BC put the  good, but not brilliant, achievemenst of mens cycling  well ahead of the acheivments of their women and disabled teams ( apologies for nay non pc language there. this, in my opinion, is down to there commercial aims. as such it is discriminatory. i think the women and disbles cyclists did even bettr than tyhe able bodies men over the past 20 years. that is the untold story of british cycling. and that is  disgrace for a society that purports to be inclusive. shane on BC.

Interesting comments but what if she is right?

In over 40 years cycling, competing, organising and watching I've never yet seen a time when BC (previously BCF) seemed able to follow simple performance based and unbiased selection processes. Some people have always been given chances well beyond what would seem reasonable whilst others have not. It seems that fitting in, having the right attitude to fit in, has often been more important than simply talent and ability. There has also never been a time when women were treated as anything other than an afterthought or supplementary to the men.

Somehow I doubt that BC has changed all that much so it really is likely that both Houvenhagel and Varnish are right.

She states that BC had a win at all costs attitude and then says that they did not pick her because of her age.  She cannot have it both ways.

Agree with all the comments - this is exactly why women have no place in professional sport.

It'd be in the best interests of BC to put in their best team. Medals mean better funding for the next cycle.

I can't see BC screwing themselves over just because someone is 37.

They have chosen the best team and it's highly likely that those not chosen would disagree.

My understanding of the selection is that it was between Wendy Houvenaghel and Dani King......

The decision came down to the bounce from the tapering of the training prior to the event. DK was more of a fast twitch athlete compared to DH's slower twitch endurance physiology. Fast twitch athletes will always have a bigger bounce from a taper.....therefore it was thought that DK would be the better rider on the day. Had they had a ride off 2 weeks before the event WH may well have won......1 week before.....possibly the same result.....but on the Day it would have been DK.

DK was chosen on that basis.

You cannot quibble with the performances that the girls did....you couldn't ask for any more.

Interestingly reading the guardian article she is more upset at not having a ride, even in an earlier round as this would have meant she would have been eligible for any medal won later in the competition.

You could say that Cav has the same issue, didn't get a ride in the Rio 4k pursuit, he was the fifth rider, but he got a Silver medal in his individual event the Ominium.....Haven't heard him beef about not getting a Gold in the TP.

  https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2012/aug/06/london-2012-olympics-wendy...

It's a bit different not getting selected for an individual event (like the sprint), but maybe she wasn't the best "team" member, even if she was in theory faster. Not saying she was or wasn't but a team event isn't necessarily made up of the best individuals. 

British Cycling should have a trials meet or something like how swimmers and marathon runners get selected. Everyone show up and put your best time down, and actually write the times down somewhere (not on Dr Freeman's laptop). Then for Tokyo 2020 they can base the selections on something concrete rather than people getting cut for parking in Shane Sutton's carpark or taking the last of the inhalers or whatever. 

There is no doubt that Wendy was a world class athelte, and to be frank, age should bare no relevance when it comes to winning Olympic medals.

However, from my own recollection, wendy did seem to have a habit of 'choking' on the really big occasions. 

Actually that is overstretching it a bit, but on more than one occasions she failed to produce the performance she was capable of, when she really needed to do it.

I can fully understand that BC may have looked to keep her on the side lines if there was the threat she could drop the ball...

How would you record that consideration and relay now? 

100% agree with davel - was just about to say similar.

There's one thing that's missing from these arguments - the relevant times of the participants.

I think this is a glaring omission on both sides: Houvenaghel and Varnish will have been acutely aware of the times they were riding at the time, so if Houvenaghel says 'over 4k I was 2 secs faster than Rowsell' - argument won, really. If she was 0.2 secs slower and Rowsell was suffering from flu, again, argument probably won. If it was purely on power output over n seconds, again, the riders and coaches will know exactly where they were. It's their job, for god's sake.

BC should have the numbers to easily refute this if there's nothing in it.

I don't understand the secrecy or difficulty: as a teenager I was a half-decent (athletics) sprinter, and I knew exactly where I stood against the rest of my training group as far as 100m, 200m and 400m times went. We knew each others' PBs and training times intimately. If I didn't make the inidividual events, I knew why. If someone didn't make the relay, they knew why. The coach would point to race times or training times and that was that -  he was maintaining lists and spreadsheets on Windows 3, and, knowing him, if I queried an exclusion now, he'd still have the relevant records, migrated 12 times into the latest version of Excel. From my experience of other training groups, he wasn't a one-off.

All that was in an athletics club competing at regional and national level, 20 years ago. I was at school and a part-time amateur, and the coaches were volunteers with proper jobs. Where the fuck is the relevant data from the world's best cycling squad over the last few years? Why is such a black-and-white issue as selection based on time being turned so grey?

This isn't just a dig at BC - numbers aren't forthcoming in the complaints of Varnish and Houvenaghel either. They will have known if they were up on their national rivals, and it would add credibility to their complaints to be quoting some numbers. But BC is the organisation, they should be able to kill these complaints dead, and not being able to do so makes them look amateur or unnecessarily secretive - or both.

tl;dr: enough of this shit, BC.

Ageism?!? It's sport!!!! In what world is a 37 year old that relies purely on their legs at any sort of peak?

Sorry to be flippint, but.... I wasn't picked for the womens team persuit either - clearly another case of sexisum and ageisum.

Get is getting a little silly now. It would be fantastic if everyone could have a go, but is not how the rules work, and that is not BC's fault.

There were only 3 spots possible - and the format of the event means you need to post a quick time in each round. Given the three chosen riders set a new WR in every round and took the gold medal, then complaining about selection is rather difficult.

And for the record - I do believe that Varnish was treated badly, but I also believe that BC entered the two best riders at the Olympics. 

I think more weight might be due if they can prove that their numbers were better, they're performances worthy of more.

Yes - and more than that - more weight would also be due if the team had returned empty handed (or clearly underperformed) . However the team smashed it. Could you point to any of the selected riders and say they were unworthy of being there?

But while she was being picked to ride and winning medals she didn't feel like putting in a complaint....

Sports organisations are always going to have to balance form, ability, skill and temperament. No easy task. But the problem with these complaints is that there is an element of sour grapes.

It is a self-fulfilling argument; successful riders are happy and have no reason to affect the status quo, unhappy riders are going to feel marginalised and dissatisfied. I think more weight might be due if they can prove that their numbers were better, they're performances worthy of more. However, British Cycling receive their funding by winning medals, and they would be idiots if they were jeopardising that by putting in riders that weren't capable.

Competitive environments don't tend to be entirely fun places to be especially if you are not top dog.

Obviously I can't speak with any authority about why she didn't ride but that the women's team got a world record in the finals, you'd have to ask whether she's right that Team GB didn't put up their fastest team.