Great Britain now truly a cycling nation

From the BBC:

David Bond | 18:01 UK time, Tuesday, 27 September 2011

With Mark Cavendish delivering Britain's first world title in road
cycling for 46 years, is the sport now Britain's most successful?

UK Sport certainly seems to think so.

The government agency responsible for funding our elite Olympic
athletes told me that in medal terms alone cycling is the best
performer since the introduction of lottery funding in 1997.

Here are some statistics which back up that argument.

Since 2001 British Cycling has won a total of 103 world championship
and Olympic medals on the track and on the road.

The only sports which come close to that level of success are rowing
and sailing, with Britain's rowers winning 51 senior world
championship medals over the same period.

As ever with statistics they need some qualification. Rowing does not
have a world championships in Olympic year so, again, the number of
medals up for grabs is lower.
Mark Cavendish sprints to title

Perhaps the last three years provides a better measure with rowing
winning 27 medals - just four behind cycling for the same period.

But whichever way you slice it, cycling's return is extremely
impressive.

In financial terms, it is also one of British sport's biggest success
stories.

Over the last 10 years British Cycling has received just under £44m,
which works out at £417, 475 per medal.

Compare that to athletics which received more money than cycling -
£50m - but has won just 36 medals since 2001.

Again this comes with a hefty footnote as athletics hosts its world
championships every two years instead of annually.

And UK Athletics will no doubt point out that winning medals in
athletics is harder than any other sport because of the sheer number
of countries and top athletes competing for the top places.

That is undoubtedly true. But the financial calculation is quite
revealing nonetheless. In athletics the cost per medal in the last 10
years is £1.4m - three times more expensive than in cycling.

Despite all this British Cycling is preparing for London 2012 knowing
it is likely to win less than the 14 medals it won in Beijing in 2008.

That is because the sport's world governing body, the UCI, has dropped
two events - the individual pursuit and the Madison - to ensure
greater parity between men and women.

But with Cavendish leading GB country to the top of this year's road
world championships medal table in Denmark, there is every chance that
any shortfall on the track could be plugged by this new success on the
road.

British Cycling's performance director Dave Brailsford, says we are
now a "genuine cycling nation". It is becoming increasingly hard to
argue against that.


Telegram Spam

On 08/10/2011 07:54, Telegram Spam wrote:

From the BBC:

David Bond | 18:01 UK time, Tuesday, 27 September 2011

With Mark Cavendish delivering Britain's first world title in road
cycling for 46 years, is the sport now Britain's most successful?

UK Sport certainly seems to think so.

But millions of British football fans - most of whom nowadays pay out a small
fortune, one way or another, to follow their sporting passions - don't.

On 08/10/11 12:15, JNugent wrote:
On 08/10/2011 07:54, Telegram Spam wrote:

From the BBC:

David Bond | 18:01 UK time, Tuesday, 27 September 2011

With Mark Cavendish delivering Britain's first world title in road
cycling for 46 years, is the sport now Britain's most successful?

UK Sport certainly seems to think so.

But millions of British football fans - most of whom nowadays pay out a
small fortune, one way or another, to follow their sporting passions -
don't.

Really? So these millions of British football fans can point out the
international success of British football? Granted there have been some
successes in international competitions of British based clubs (with
increasingly fewer British players representing), but there really has
been a paucity of international success for the national teams of the
UK. If you read the article, it is quite clear that it is referring to
the success in cycling as actual medals and competitions won
internationally, especially when compared to the money in the sport.
Popularity isn't the "success" being talked about here.

Colin

On Oct 8, 1:40*pm, Colin Reed wrote:

Really? *So these millions of British football fans can point out the
international success of British football? *Granted there have been some
successes in international competitions of British based clubs (with
increasingly fewer British players representing), but there really has
been a paucity of international success for the national teams of the
UK. *If you read the article, it is quite clear that it is referring to
the success in cycling as actual medals and competitions won
internationally, especially when compared to the money in the sport.
Popularity isn't the "success" being talked about here.

Colin

The England football team has won nothing at all for 45 years and last
night could not even beat a sixth part of what used to be Yugoslavia.
British cyclists are true world beaters, not a bunch of overpaid prima
donnas who fall down crying when they get a tap on the ankle. They are
a national disgrace.

--
Simon Mason

On 08/10/2011 13:40, Colin Reed wrote:
On 08/10/11 12:15, JNugent wrote:
On 08/10/2011 07:54, Telegram Spam wrote:

From the BBC:

David Bond | 18:01 UK time, Tuesday, 27 September 2011

With Mark Cavendish delivering Britain's first world title in road
cycling for 46 years, is the sport now Britain's most successful?

UK Sport certainly seems to think so.

But millions of British football fans - most of whom nowadays pay out a
small fortune, one way or another, to follow their sporting passions -
don't.

Really? So these millions of British football fans can point out the
international success of British football?

Do you mean today?

Or over the whole history of the game (including having invented a sport
which has swept the globe with very few geographical exceptions)?

On 08/10/2011 13:49, Simon Mason wrote:

British cyclists are true world beaters, not a bunch of overpaid prima
donnas who fall down crying when they get a tap on the ankle. They are
a national disgrace.

Oops!

:-)

On Oct 8, 1:49*pm, Simon Mason wrote:
On Oct 8, 1:40*pm, Colin Reed wrote:



Really? *So these millions of British football fans can point out the
international success of British football? *Granted there have been some
successes in international competitions of British based clubs (with
increasingly fewer British players representing), but there really has
been a paucity of international success for the national teams of the
UK. *If you read the article, it is quite clear that it is referring to
the success in cycling as actual medals and competitions won
internationally, especially when compared to the money in the sport.
Popularity isn't the "success" being talked about here.

Colin

The England football team has won nothing at all for 45 years and last
night could not even beat a sixth part of what used to be Yugoslavia.
British cyclists are true world beaters, not a bunch of overpaid prima
donnas who fall down crying when they get a tap on the ankle. They are
a national disgrace.

--
Simon Mason

And of course it is very difficult to find an English player at all in
many of the top Premier League clubs, so any success they have had is
more to do with overpaid foreigners anyway.

--
Simon Mason

On Oct 8, 3:01*pm, Peter Parry wrote:
On Sat, 8 Oct 2011 05:49:06 -0700 (PDT), Simon Mason

wrote:
British cyclists are true world beaters

They do seem to have some top pharmacologists.

So good that they never fail a drug test.

--
Simon Mason

On Sat, 8 Oct 2011 05:49:06 -0700 (PDT), Simon Mason
wrote:

British cyclists are true world beaters

They do seem to have some top pharmacologists.

On Sat, 8 Oct 2011 07:01:10 -0700 (PDT), Simon Mason
wrote:

On Oct 8, 3:01*pm, Peter Parry wrote:
On Sat, 8 Oct 2011 05:49:06 -0700 (PDT), Simon Mason


They do seem to have some top pharmacologists.

So good that they never fail a drug test.

They wouldn't be much good if they let their clients get caught. The
captain of the Great Britain team, David Millar, is a self confessed
past user of EPO. Earlier this year the UCI index of suspicion from
the 2010 Tour de France was leaked. Hunt, Thomas, Wiggins all scored
between 5 and 7 out of ten in the UCI risk assessment of riders based
on blood passport results in 2010 ( a number of cyclists with scores
of 5 and above in that list have subsequently failed drugs tests). The
average index of the 198 riders in the 2010 Tour de France was 2.4.
43 had scores of 5 or over.