Rio BMX and MTB **spoilers**

"Liam Phillips seemed destined to be a BMX champion. Father Pete, a former national coach in the sport, helped to found a local BMX club and renovate a track in his hometown of Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset, while Phillips first rode a bike at the age of five and raced against his sister Charlie from an early age.

It is probably no surprise, therefore, that since making his Olympic Games debut in Beijing, at the age of just 19, Phillips has won 11 gold medals at UCI BMX World Championships and UCI BMX Supercross World Cup events."

https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/gbcyc ... aVffG8j.99

Liam Phillips is our only medal chance - and it's a very good one but BMX can be a bun fight.

British Cycling's attitude to MTB is atrocious so I think we ve only qualified one man, Grant Ferguson, who to be fair to him, is nt going to win and would be over the moon with a top-10

ddraver wrote:

Liam Phillips is our only medal chance - and it's a very good one but BMX can be a bun fight.

British Cycling's attitude to MTB is atrocious so I think we ve only qualified one man, Grant Ferguson, who to be fair to him, is nt going to win and would be over the moon with a top-10

Is MTB the one Sagan is riding in?

(I'm assuming its not the BMX, but then who know??)

^^Yes

Essentially GB did tn qualify a woman (and really only qualified a man by fluke) becasue they won't pay to send people to races where points are collected. You'll remember Evie Richards who dominated the U23 CX World Champs back in March? She rides XCO for a career, but has to ride for a continental team because there is no support, coaching or anything from BC.

Any British success in any form of MTB is acheived in spite of BC, not becasue of it

(and breathe)

delete

Where are all the others??

People were asking why the french have as much money as BC but have less success on the track - one reason is because they actually fund cycling as a whole rather than just the more guanrenteed olympic medals. How you view that depends on a few things...

ddraver wrote:

^^Yes

Essentially GB did tn qualify a woman (and really only qualified a man by fluke) becasue they won't pay to send people to races where points are collected. You'll remember Evie Richards who dominated the U23 CX World Champs back in March? She rides XCO for a career, but has to ride for a continental team because there is no support, coaching or anything from BC.

Any British success in any form of MTB is acheived in spite of BC, not becasue of it

(and breathe)

This isn't quite true. Evie Richards is on the senior BC academy - she gets lots of support and has her own coach. She also has the support of Tracy Moseley. I could be wrong, but I don't think she rides for a continental team - I think she is part of 100% Me, the BC funded 'trade' team. Ffion James was on the same programme but I think has left to pursue an academic career. We also had Alice Barnes, but it looks like she'll head for road. In the Juniors we have some prospects, but difficult to know how that will pan out. On the male side, we have some excellent prospects - I think Fraser Claherty is one to watch over the next few years. Paton/Pearce etc, not sure about.

MTB definitely suffers from neglect. I suspect that this is probably down to it having limited medal prospects and that in reality there's only ever going to be 1 (maybe 2) places at the Olympics, unlike the track where you need quite a substantial pool of riders. I guess whoever calls the shots at BC allocates funding accordingly. My view is though that if you want to have olympic riders, you have to create a competitive environment - it's no coincidence that the Swiss and French mtb teams are so successful when they have so many riders battling for places.

PuttyKnees wrote:

ddraver wrote:

^^Yes

Essentially GB did tn qualify a woman (and really only qualified a man by fluke) becasue they won't pay to send people to races where points are collected. You'll remember Evie Richards who dominated the U23 CX World Champs back in March? She rides XCO for a career, but has to ride for a continental team because there is no support, coaching or anything from BC.

Any British success in any form of MTB is acheived in spite of BC, not becasue of it

(and breathe)

This isn't quite true. Evie Richards is on the senior BC academy - she gets lots of support and has her own coach. She also has the support of Tracy Moseley. I could be wrong, but I don't think she rides for a continental team - I think she is part of 100% Me, the BC funded 'trade' team. Ffion James was on the same programme but I think has left to pursue an academic career. We also had Alice Barnes, but it looks like she'll head for road. In the Juniors we have some prospects, but difficult to know how that will pan out. On the male side, we have some excellent prospects - I think Fraser Claherty is one to watch over the next few years. Paton/Pearce etc, not sure about.

MTB definitely suffers from neglect. I suspect that this is probably down to it having limited medal prospects and that in reality there's only ever going to be 1 (maybe 2) places at the Olympics, unlike the track where you need quite a substantial pool of riders. I guess whoever calls the shots at BC allocates funding accordingly. My view is though that if you want to have olympic riders, you have to create a competitive environment - it's no coincidence that the Swiss and French mtb teams are so successful when they have so many riders battling for places.

As you say, Putty, Evie Richards for BC's Academy team 100% ME, NOT a Conti team. BC now have MTB Academy programmes (male and female)

Garry H wrote:

Why do they even have what basically amounts to a child's sport in the Olympics. They should ditch it in favour of more track events.

Good trolling! It's called diversity, get over it. And rather than more track events why not MTB DH? Or Enduro?

lostboysaint wrote:

Garry H wrote:

Why do they even have what basically amounts to a child's sport in the Olympics. They should ditch it in favour of more track events.

Good trolling! It's called diversity, get over it. And rather than more track events why not MTB DH? Or Enduro?

I'll give you that, either one of those two would be better.

double oops

4X!

I'd rather see Downhill in than BMX but I guess it's just personal choice. To me BMX always seems to have an over-reliance on luck, it's a bit like short track speed skating in that there's a high likelihood of the favourites taking each other out and someone who was lagging miles behind winning.

Garry H wrote:

Why do they even have what basically amounts to a child's sport in the Olympics. They should ditch it in favour of more track events.

You're going to LOVE skateboarding in the Tokyo Games then