Which would you rather?

timoid.

For your country to:

Win the men's olympic road race?
Win the oodles of golds on the track?

Just curioius

IMHO: Nicole Cooke's result is the best British cycling result of the games, followed by Emma Pooley's.

andyp

Sorry Timoid but Chris Hoy's achievements have to be the best British cycling result of the Games. He won three events, each of which have slightly different demands than the other.

He's now won 4 Olympic golds, each of which was won in a different event.

Kléber

Road race for me but Hoy is the best British performance. Run the road race three times and I'm not sure if Cooke could win again, it's part luck. Hoy would win his medals again though.

Hoy won events which have very similar demands. You ride very fast for a few of laps. Well done to him, it's brilliant but track cycling is still a minority sport within the minority sport that is cycling. How many racing licences has BC issued? 10,000? I don't know but I reckon under 10% of these people even have a track bike in the shed or garage. When Wiggins and Roulston are winning golds, it makes you think that Cancellara solo could give the GB team pursuit squad a challenge.

All that means nothing though, if you're not there, you don't win. So well done to the winners, all of them well deserved. Remember, despite all the medal success, only 10 events are awarded on the track, a fraction of those up for grabs in swimming.

iainf72

Clearly the RR for me. Many of the track results seem to be based on who spends the most money.

afx237vi

The RR for me too. Simply because you have one chance and one chance only. There's only one Olympic RR champion every 4 years.

Let's face it, the keirin, the sprint and the team sprint are very similar disciplines. If you mess up in one, you still have another chance elsewhere.

Seeing as Cav was the only member of the GB team that didn't win a medal, I think a better question would be "what would you rather win, an Olympic track gold or 4 stages of the Tour?" I know what I'd choose...

BeaconRuth

iainf72 wrote:

Many of the track results seem to be based on who spends the most money.

What an absolutely pig-ignorant thing to say.

Ruth

richa

afx237vi wrote:

The RR for me too. Simply because you have one chance and one chance only. There's only one Olympic RR champion every 4 years.

Let's face it, the keirin, the sprint and the team sprint are very similar disciplines. If you mess up in one, you still have another chance elsewhere.

Seeing as Cav was the only member of the GB team that didn't win a medal, I think a better question would be "what would you rather win, an Olympic track gold or 4 stages of the Tour?" I know what I'd choose...

I reckon he'd have given up at least one of those wins for a gold today. There are 12 Grand Tours and between now and the next Olympics...

Kléber

Ruth, if you look at the medals and results, there does seem to be a good correlation between money spent and medals won.

I was reading a Danish pursuit rider saying the British sailing squad has spent more money than the entire Danish Olympic squad combined, that he feels he can't compete.

Of course you need hard work and talent but add on the best coaches, the best kit and all the other advice, from nutrition to psychology and money is a big factor to win those extra hundredths of a second.

richa

I believe the Danes also said they can only afford fund the Team Pursuit at the cost of the other track disciplines.

iainf72

BeaconRuth wrote:

iainf72 wrote:

Many of the track results seem to be based on who spends the most money.

What an absolutely pig-ignorant thing to say.

I'm not saying they buy the races or anything. Yes, they work for it. But if you look at the comments by Jesper Worre from the Danish federation who runs a track program

"In Denmark, we only have money to try to make success in the team pursuit. That went well, but we were still beaten by seven seconds. They are number one by far. The funding is too far ahead for almost all nations. I think nobody can match the funding."

andyrac

Kléber wrote:

Road race for me but Hoy is the best British performance. Run the road race three times and I'm not sure if Cooke could win again, it's part luck. Hoy would win his medals again though.

Hoy won events which have very similar demands. You ride very fast for a few of laps. Well done to him, it's brilliant but track cycling is still a minority sport within the minority sport that is cycling. How many racing licences has BC issued? 10,000? I don't know but I reckon under 10% of these people even have a track bike in the shed or garage. When Wiggins and Roulston are winning golds, it makes you think that Cancellara solo could give the GB team pursuit squad a challenge.

All that means nothing though, if you're not there, you don't win. So well done to the winners, all of them well deserved. Remember, despite all the medal success, only 10 events are awarded on the track, a fraction of those up for grabs in swimming.

That would be interesting - Cancellara - in the Individual Pursuit - he'd surely win - wouldn't he?

Bikerbaboon

iainf72 wrote:

Clearly the RR for me. Many of the track results seem to be based on who spends the most money.

Track for me. Many of the RR results seem to be based on who gets away with dopeing the most.

:twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

thamacdaddy

BeaconRuth wrote:

iainf72 wrote:

Many of the track results seem to be based on who spends the most money.

What an absolutely pig-ignorant thing to say.

Ruth

Gotta agree with ruth here seems a bit of a harsh and disappointing thing to see given that this is a place where achievements and understanding of the cycling performances should be more informed than anywhere else.

You can pile the money into the sport and it can't be denied the track team has the best funding out of those competing, but without the right leadership, coaches and mental attitude from competitors money does not equal easy success.

The same funding was spread across the british cycling academies was it not? so the road racing also benefitted as much.

They were discussing the model of the track team on the BBC this morning in relevance to other events and said the core difference wasn't just the funding but that the track cycling team in particular were all based in one area to train, contained a tight knit coaching staff and focused on making gains in every area. They discussed that throwing money into track and field wouldn't work unless they also employed the same ideas and ethos as currently majority of the other sports train individually with seperate coaching methods etc that do not tie in. You can tell by the team spirit in the track that they spend so much time together working towards their goals.

I would personally take either as they both require skills, dedication and training in different areas. Only a minority few could be great at both, Cancellara is probably one of these.

iainf72

Bikerbaboon wrote:

iainf72 wrote:

Clearly the RR for me. Many of the track results seem to be based on who spends the most money.

Track for me. Many of the RR results seem to be based on who gets away with dopeing the most.

:twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

How do you know track isn't exactly the same?

FJS

Track
The olympic road race is getting more important the last years, but is still a long shot from being the big prize of the road cycling year; I would say most pros would rather win the Ronde van Vlaanderen, Paris-Roubaix or Milan San Remo, let alone a Grand Tour, than the Olymnpic RR.
For track cyclists on the other hand the Olympics is the big event, not just of the year, but for four years. Look at Theo Bos, scores of world champions titles in between, but nothing in Beijing. I cannot see any road racer reaching his level of dissapointment with not winning the RR.
On the other hand, for the masses it doesn't matter; a gold is a gold and a step higher on the medal table.

Jez mon

AndyRAC wrote:

Kléber wrote:

Road race for me but Hoy is the best British performance. Run the road race three times and I'm not sure if Cooke could win again, it's part luck. Hoy would win his medals again though.

Hoy won events which have very similar demands. You ride very fast for a few of laps. Well done to him, it's brilliant but track cycling is still a minority sport within the minority sport that is cycling. How many racing licences has BC issued? 10,000? I don't know but I reckon under 10% of these people even have a track bike in the shed or garage. When Wiggins and Roulston are winning golds, it makes you think that Cancellara solo could give the GB team pursuit squad a challenge.

All that means nothing though, if you're not there, you don't win. So well done to the winners, all of them well deserved. Remember, despite all the medal success, only 10 events are awarded on the track, a fraction of those up for grabs in swimming.

That would be interesting - Cancellara - in the Individual Pursuit - he'd surely win - wouldn't he?

It's a good question. Surely he could go to the worlds rattle off a good time, qualify for the olympics and then go and get a gold medal? I know Brad Wiggins has specific prep, but Sparticus is miles ahead of him in prologues, and can perform day in day out.

andyp

BeaconRuth wrote:

iainf72 wrote:

Many of the track results seem to be based on who spends the most money.

What an absolutely pig-ignorant thing to say.

Ruth

I think it's actually on the money, if you'll excuse the pun. It would be very interesting to see a league table of nations ranked on their level of investment in track racing. BC get a budget of approx £4 million pounds to spend per annum.

Clearly it takes a lot more than pure cash to win, as our track and field athletes are proving, but I believe the UK spends a lot more than other nations on track cycling.

Kléber

No one's saying you just shower the team with money and pick the medals up off the ground. You need to spend the money carefully but if Chris Hoy was, say, born Kristoff Hoiski and on the Polish team, would he have done as well? I doubt it.

Being able to pay people to ride full time in Manchester, to pay coaches six figure salaries, all these things help. You can't buy team spirit but you can invest in the factors that create it.

iainf72

Jez mon wrote:

It's a good question. Surely he could go to the worlds rattle off a good time, qualify for the olympics and then go and get a gold medal? I know Brad Wiggins has specific prep, but Sparticus is miles ahead of him in prologues, and can perform day in day out.

Cancellera was planning on doing it this year, but the qualification etc would've impacted on the road season so he decided against it.

thamacdaddy

Kléber wrote:

No one's saying you just shower the team with money and pick the medals up off the ground. You need to spend the money carefully but if Chris Hoy was, say, born Kristoff Hoiski and on the Polish team, would he have done as well? I doubt it.

Being able to pay people to ride full time in Manchester, to pay coaches six figure salaries, all these things help. You can't buy team spirit but you can invest in the factors that create it.

Totally agree with this but I still don't think its totally fair to disregard the achievements because of this. Would a Phelps being polish manage 8 medals in the pool???? I think its interesting that you don't hear americans spouting this or anyone else for that matter its all the same in my book. The danish guy saying it comes down to money is being a little bit off in my book, he says its not sour grapes but he is saying that for him their team could have done no better because they could only invest in the team pursuit.

Would love to see investment in all the sports from all the countries so we would be able to have more informed discussions on how well this money is being spent. It would seem the lottery cash to BC has been a sound investment.

method

iainf72 wrote:

Clearly the RR for me. Many of the track results seem to be based on who spends the most money.

I would have thought that is true of most sports. It worked for the Australians a few years ago and now it seems to work for us.

Kléber

thamacdaddy wrote:

Totally agree with this but I still don't think its totally fair to disregard the achievements because of this.

Who is disregarding these achievements?

thamacdaddy wrote:

Would love to see investment in all the sports from all the countries so we would be able to have more informed discussions on how well this money is being spent. It would seem the lottery cash to BC has been a sound investment.

Now we're into politics. Some people can't afford to heat their homes this winter so if you want to spend more, where would you cut elsewhere or who would you tax more? I'll step away from this and leave it to the soapbox types.

thamacdaddy

I am not a soapbox type,What? Sorry I wasn't discussing justifying cost I just find it interesting people bring investment up at all and if they were I thought it might then be interesting to see what countries achieved what on what budgets as then it might allow people to know what the bigger achievements were if this bothers them.

I took the comments at investment as saying that everything has been made easier due to this and this has made track less of an achievement or that we can't enjoy it as we bought the success, I was clearly wrong so apologies.

flattythehurdler

4 million a year is good value for the enjoyment i reckon.

iainf72

flattythehurdler wrote:

4 million a year is good value for the enjoyment i reckon.

I know that I'm not including the Worlds etc where they also compete, but if you took just the 4m andyp quotes and apply it to this Olympics its

£ 285K per medal (so far, still could be more medals)

£160K per cyclist

Moomaloid

Not sure the choice is a fair one. Why would i trade one RR gold for a bunch of track golds? Track cycling is doing the most to bring our sport to the attention of the British Public and for that i am grateful. With Track cycling winning, the funding increases for road too i bet, so i'll take the track golds thanx. Anyhow, we've got nobody who can compete in the Mens RR yet have we...

vermooten

Track schmack. IM(H)O the important facts of the Olympics are:

* Nicole Cooke won gold in the RR
* Emma Pooley got silver in the TT
* none of the GB men's RR cyclists even finished

Cumulonimbus

How about whether you would trade a stage win on the Champs-Elysses for 8th place in the Olympic Madison?

No, fair play to Mark - it was obvious he was tired in the Tour and probably wouldnt have made it through the Alps. At his age he will have plenty more oppurtunities on the Champs Elysses but a good shot at gold in the Olympics might not come round again.

knedlicky

Cumulonimbus wrote:

No, fair play to Mark - it was obvious he was tired in the Tour and probably wouldnt have made it through the Alps. At his age he will have plenty more oppurtunities on the Champs Elysses but a good shot at gold in the Olympics might not come round again.

I think he wimped out in the TdF. Other riders his age or younger both finished the Tour and went to China. The only reasonable excuse came from manager Stapleton, who said in one interview that Cav wasn't 'much more than a child', (which I think came over sometimes).

SteveR_100Milers

For the Olympics its all about medals: it's a business after all. So far, the track is a much better business than road cycling, the reasons for which have been done to death elsewhere. Sentiment is what loses these things to those damn aussies, so lets not lose sight of what is really important.

Clearly the RR for me. Many of the track results seem to be based on who spends the most money.

and what a load of bolloks Ian sorry. Just count the number of velodromes in France, oh and what about Japan where keirin riders are paid a sh1t load more than McHoy.

richard wants a baum

SteveR_100Milers

what a load of bolloks Ian sorry. Just count the number of velodromes in France, oh and what about Japan where keirin riders are paid a sh1t load more than McHoy.

Firstly wants the budget for the French Track program? Secondly how many of the keirin guys are in the olympics? none id expect as the only reason they go over there is because keirin racing or should i say the betting is big business over there. Its also very dangerous because of dodgy rules and id doubt many of the top guys would risk injury for the money. The fact is you British have done exactly what you (and everyone else especially us Aussies now) have to do, spend the big bucks buy the best coaches get the best programs and you give the Athletes the best chance of winning. The Olympics is like the TdF everyones trying to hit top form just at the right time and if you under/over cook it youll struggle a good coach slash program will help to get them there. Your guys have done amazingly well at that.