Jamie Staff on Sky / BC

iainf72

Oo-er, someone is going to have a word

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101122/sp ... ggbrusasky?

phil s

Having seen the Brits and Sky close up over recent times, I have to agree with Jamie that cracks are starting to appear. March to August 2008 were the peak of this current era and everything we have seen since has been a steady decline - not a calamitous crash, I hasten to add. The mood of that time feels long gone and people do say things off-the-record that make you think there is a very delicate juggling act going on between the needs of the nation and the wants of the corporate megalith funding it all now.

Agent57

I admit to being somewhat ambivalent about this. Of course, dominating the velodrome at the Olympics is fantastic, but I'm also very keen to see a British professional team really do the business in the international pro race scene, and of course to see a British pro tour winner.

frenchfighter

So what. Going round a track fast gets boring very quickly.

No-one can replace baldy Brailsford then...not sure if he is still 'leading' the trackies, but he should probably only do one and not both if that is the case.

inkyfingers

frenchfighter wrote:

So what. Going round a track fast gets boring very quickly.
.

Yes FF...Coppi, Anquetil and Merckx shouldn't have bothered with it...

frenchfighter

1hr to top off your career is bearable

iainf72

phil s wrote:

The mood of that time feels long gone and people do say things off-the-record that make you think there is a very delicate juggling act going on between the needs of the nation and the wants of the corporate megalith funding it all now.

Interesting stuff Phil. Any feeling what might happen with the audit report?

phil s

Not really any solid idea - when I say that, I mean I don't know if everyone will come out of the audit smelling of roses and things carry on as they were, or if there'll be recommendations for change at the top.
I've always been uneasy about the way the sponsorship is "shared" across the pro road team and the rest of the programme. One could argue there's huge scope for lax accounting of resources and in many other industries I'm not sure such an arrangement would be tolerated - especially when public funding streams are mixed in. It's also pretty unusual for a major media concern - a non-rights-holding one - to be such a huge principal sponsor. I'm not saying that because of where I am employed, as I have only six weeks left in my job and am fairly non-partisan now.

stagehopper

Sounded for a while that Brailsford would be stepping back from the road to concentrate more on the track in the run up to the Olympics and interviews from the Team Sky media day seem to suggest as much os may seem some difference there.

However thought where they've taken the eye of the ball is sending minimal squads to the various World Cups - basically reducing the whole season's programme to the Manchester round of the World Cup and the World Championships. Throw in their reluctance to enter cyclists in non-Olympic world championship events and you get the feeling that a very narrow system has been created with little reward for many of the athletes in it.

Combine this with the ridiculously low numbers of riders who can qualify for 2012 in any event and it looks like a programme that squeezed the blood out of the stone when it could (thanks to Pendleton, Wiggins and Hoy) and now finds the goalposts shifted such that strength in depth has become no longer important.

Pross

phil s wrote:

Having seen the Brits and Sky close up over recent times, I have to agree with Jamie that cracks are starting to appear. March to August 2008 were the peak of this current era and everything we have seen since has been a steady decline - not a calamitous crash, I hasten to add. The mood of that time feels long gone and people do say things off-the-record that make you think there is a very delicate juggling act going on between the needs of the nation and the wants of the corporate megalith funding it all now.

I don't think the recent apparent reduction in the success on the track is down to Team Sky or Brailsford having divided loyalties. The changes to the Olympic programme has meant that the top riders are shifting focus and developing in new events whilst some promising young talent are developing their skills in the non Olympic events. If GB are less successful in 2012 then I would argue it is more a result of the IOC / UCI colluding to reduce the Team GB dominance mixed with other countries such as Australia learning from us and upping their own game again. Staff has a vested interest in trying to stir up discontentment in the GB camp now as he is coaching a rival nation.

I think anyone predicting the demise of GB in cycling should take a look at rowing where we often struggle between Olympics as the coaching team change things around to ensure a constant supply of fresh talent coming through. Otherwise you end up with a 'golden generation' retiring and no-one coming through with the experience to take their place (see Aussie cricket team and track squad, England rugby post 2003 etc.)

phil s

Just saying it as I see it. 2012 will be the litmus test, but of more interest to me and to many other fans of road cycling will be whether GB will actually start to get results on the road, whether the Academy will thrive (I've heard rumours of discontent there, and is Newton the right man for the job?) Cav is the one constant bright light IMO, and his success is down to himself and HTC, he is not so reliant on BC

Tom Butcher

It's bad for any sport for one nation or team to dominate so whilst I want to see GB do well part of me will also be glad if we don't dominate on the track to the extent we did.

If more focus on the road has led to the track results suffering (not saying that's the case but IF) then in my opinion that's a price worth paying - in terms of interest the road is where it is at - you only have to look at the volume of posts on any cycling forum to see that. It isn't just amongst cycling fans either - lads I play football with have more interest in the TdF than the Olympic track events.

William H

frenchfighter wrote:

1hr to top off your career is bearable

Coppi was Individual Pursuit world champion, I believe

Pross

lads I play football with have more interest in the TdF than the Olympic track events.

That surprises me, my own experience is that more people have a clue what is going on at the Olympic track cycling than at the Tour (unless there's been another +ve test of course!). It's the same with most sports in my experience, if we have high profile success as a nation suddenly everyone is an expert in the sport!

I think we need to get away from a 'them and us' type attitude between road and track cycling and treat them like Rugby League and Rugby Union, neither is better than the other they are just different sports that have a few things in common.

afx237vi

Except union is obviously miles better than league. 8)

*scarpers*

Pross

I was trying to keep those bolshy northerners happy - now you've gone and done it! Anyway, what does someone from Neath know about rugby?

afx237vi

Pross wrote:

I was trying to keep those bolshy northerners happy - now you've gone and done it! Anyway, what does someone from Neath know about rugby?

About the same as they know about cycling - ie bugger all, but it doesn't mean they can't pretend to be an expert

inkyfingers

William H wrote:

frenchfighter wrote:

1hr to top off your career is bearable

Coppi was Individual Pursuit world champion, I believe

Indeed he was, and Merckx spent a bit more than an hour on the track...

pedro118118

stagehopper wrote:

Sounded for a while that Brailsford would be stepping back from the road to concentrate more on the track in the run up to the Olympics and interviews from the Team Sky media day seem to suggest as much os may seem some difference there.

I don't think Dr Evil stepping back from the road programme would be a bad thing - it would then give the experienced DS's more autonomy. For me, the DB approach isn't necessarily the right one to ensure road success - all these technical marginal gains mean nothing if bad tactical decisions are being made in the heat of the battle. There were times last year, when Sky's tactics on the road were bewildering - and not in a good way. Award for top tactical blunder goes to DB for the crackpot idea of sending Wiggo off early in the TdF prologue - a disaster, as he lost 30 seconds to a number of the other GC big guns, instead of simply riding around with all the other big hitters in similar conditions. Crazy.[/quote]

inkyfingers

pedro118118 wrote:

I don't think Dr Evil stepping back from the road programme would be a bad thing - it would then give the experienced DS's more autonomy. For me, the DB approach isn't necessarily the right one to ensure road success - all these technical marginal gains mean nothing if bad tactical decisions are being made in the heat of the battle. There were times last year, when Sky's tactics on the road were bewildering - and not in a good way. Award for top tactical blunder goes to DB for the crackpot idea of sending Wiggo off early in the TdF prologue - a disaster, as he lost 30 seconds to a number of the other GC big guns, instead of simply riding around with all the other big hitters in similar conditions. Crazy.

[/quote]

I was watching that prologue the other day and that part made me cringe...clearly the result of somebody trying to be far too clever. Even if it wasn't DB's idea he should have vetoed it. Send Wiggins out at the same time as his rivals and you are pretty much guaranteed he'll be one of the fastest GC guys and probably top 3 on the stage. Having said that, if it had worked and Wiggins had taken 30 seconds out of all his rivals and won the stage we might be saluting it as genius, even then I still think it was too much of a risk.

Tom Butcher

I'm not a big fan of Sky but surely you send your best rider off at a time when the weather forecasters predict conditions will be best. It's not as if WIggo was likely to be able to ride away from his rivals in the hills so a conservative strategy elsewhere didn't make sense - he needed to try and maximise his advantages where he could.

Brailsford took a chance and it went wrong but I defy anyone to argue that if you've got a forecast saying conditions will be best for the early starters that you should send your best rider out late just because that's what every other team will do.

inkyfingers

If you were a terrible TTer and had nothing to lose then maybe it might be wortth taking the risk and hoping for better weather than your rivals, but there's a good reason why all the GC riders tend to go out at the end, as they will know the kind of times they need to be beating and they will all be riding in similar conditions. Given similar conditions you'd expect Wiggins to beat almost all of his GC rivals in a short TT, so why take the risk?

frenchfighter

http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/6502/ ... -team.aspx

pedro118118

I find Wiggins tedious. All this, "Couldn't give a monkeys" and "All a load of crap" etc is wearing thin.