Excellent Cavendish article from todays Observer

iainf72

Good read.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/no ... -de-france

Pleased to hear he's not going to muck about with that track lark now.

'The track for me is easy success and for other people it's easy success, which is real nice,' he says. 'It's nice to indulge and get easy success, you are not going to turn it down. But yeah, after a while, if it's easy and it keeps coming, do something different

LangerDan

A nice change from the interminable string of interviews with you-know-who.

But who the hell researches thses things :
"His success this year will make him one of the most highly paid riders in a sport where even journeymen can earn close to £100,000 a year."

Though then again it may be a reference to Maxime Monfort......

oldwelshman

Always interesting reading Cav's interviews
He does have some valid points about track not doing anything for his career.
I also think he has a valid point about the prep for Maddison.
Considering all the hype about how well prepared the UK team were (were for most events anyway) I was suprised to find Wiggins in the Maddison. With all the races he was doing, and once they decided Steve Burke was dong the individual pursuit and not Geraint Thomas why did they not put Thomas with Cav? They would have had a far better chance than Cav with a tired Wiggins. Was Wiggens chosen just to give him a shot at 3 golds or did the UK selectors really think he would be fast enough after all those races to be a better bet than Thomas?No wonder Cav was pissed off.

teagar

Unfortunately I'm on of those people who will dislike something as soon as it gets popular, but even I find it hard not to like Cavendish and enjoy watching him race.

skavanagh.bikeradar

While Cav (and to a degree Cooke) are right about the track at the same time I'm hopeful that Brailsford is using it as a trojan horse for pro-road cycling success. He's had to invest in the track in order to win medals in an Olympic discipline that can be better controlled than the road. He's done it brilliantly. Now the challenge is to keep that funding goldmine running while shifting focus to europe and the road.

You could argue that with Cooke's success this year part of the plan for the road is already working - again it's easier to control women's road racing than the men's and again he's pulled it off. 10 years ago who would've put money on that lot of success? Not many. The track programme is identifying and bringing through talent that may ultimately do it on the road. Look at Cav FFS.

cougie

Good article - not sure on 'flicking' though ? I thought it was a lot simpler than that ?

And Cav retired shattered from the Tour - does he seriously think he would have made it through to Paris ?

stagehopper

Got to remember how close Cooke has been to winning the world title prior to this year's Team GB support. I think it was more a case of statistically it was bound to come her way eventually after three previous podiums.

avoidingmyphd

i disagree stagehopper. what Cooke's previous podiums showed was how much she needed a team. she is an awesome athlete, but cycling is a team sport in important respects. It says a lot that she did so well basically on her own. But what was lacking was not the opportunity to try again, but the opportunity to try again with a team behind her.

edhornby

In defence of Dave Brailsford, during the world champs in 2008 Cav and wiggins rode the madison and despite being marked men they won (and it was IMO the best performance of the worlds) but the marking from the other teams worked better at the olympics... so Dave Brailsford knew that it was a working, winning combo

mind you, Cav's got every reason to be pee'd off - and yes, I'd have had a specific madison pairing of Geraint and Cav, but isn't hindsight wonderful...

oldwelshman

I did not see any particular marking in the maddison, just heard it on tv but I did not see markig. I just saw the other pairings take a lap.
I also saw cav riding strong, brought WIggins in and he was clearly not strong enough to carry the pace on, nothing to do with marking, although we cannot expect no one to chase them, but had WIggins been fresh, or slightly fresher than he was, I am sure they would have lapped the field whetjer they were marked or not.
Don't forget WIggins had more rides in the Olympics than the World's and faster rides which must have taken it's toll hence my point they should have used Thomas who rode much less as he was only in the team pursuit.
I mentioned this before the games and once the teams were announced.

Le Commentateur

We know about the pressure of funding being dependent on medals, but are the coaches contract extensions dependent also on this? The madison is much more of a lottery - more teams, more potential for crashes, the marking aspect, plus it was at the end of the cycling schedule, so perhaps it was written off as not worth as much preparation time as the time trialling & sprinting events -- playing to strengths might be the phrase,

I used to work in an office where there was an amount of worthy-but-low status work that could be time-consuming to wade through, and also a number of high status but technically easier projects. You can imagine the tricks people got up to to avoid being given the drudge work and be able to cherry pick the nice stuff.

Tom Butcher

avoidingmyphd wrote:

i disagree stagehopper. what Cooke's previous podiums showed was how much she needed a team. she is an awesome athlete, but cycling is a team sport in important respects. It says a lot that she did so well basically on her own. But what was lacking was not the opportunity to try again, but the opportunity to try again with a team behind her.

No it wasn't - the team helped a bit but they weren't the key to her winning. Typically she's been able to get into the decisive move but without any other GB riders - same this year as in previous years. The key difference was the way she played her hand once she got into that move - and that had very little to do with the other GB riders.