http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/19147279
You can't really say that the cycling coaches made the wrong call though.
[url= http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/37-year-old-decides-to-finish-career-on-a-high-note ]Bindun...[/url]
Ah yes...
Cheekily framed pic from the Beeb there!
Our cycling success is based on hard work and hard nosed professional coaches making the right call and not allowing sentiment to cloud their judgment .Thats why they do things like this and not selecting Hoy to defend the sprint title
Sour grapes. Good of her to stay and cheer her team mates on though if I'm reading it correctly. 🙄
"I had to accept it. I left the building and with it left behind Northern Ireland's next Olympic gold medal.
If they hadn't won a medal, then I could undertand but it's a purely selfish view from Houvenaghel.
Toys ejected from the perambulator, she's never quite seemed to have the class of the rest and has displayed it in this, team GB don't owe her anything and she needs to come to terms with it.
She should take a lesson from Chris Hoy
[i]Dave Brailsford, Team GB Cycling's Performance Director, responded by saying that he and his team had to "take the personal element out of it, and look at the data and be professional".
"Our job is to be impartial - it's a tough job. We have to support the people on the track, try to win medals and we've had a few tough decisions to make.
"Unfortunately, in a squad there are always going to be people who miss out - that comes with the territory, everyone knows the score.
"As long as the decision-making is fair, impartial, and everyone understands the process, it can't be reproached.
"If people don't understand it and it's not quite clear and people think there might be some personal bias involved, then that's an issue.
"But I think when a team steps up and makes six world records on the trot and a gold medal, then I don't think you can argue with that." [/i]
Exactly.
The selectors obviously have no idea what they are doing , just look at the results................oh!
+ she's got a funny name 😆
I suspect she has a bit of a flighty temperament (not as bad as Romero mind) and just to keep her on board as effectively the alternate (they always needed a 4th just in case one was not able to race) they had play up her chances of riding which makes hearing the truth pretty bitter. Also a case of them saying one thing and her hearing something else.
Must be rough getting proper championship fit and then not even being able to take to the boards once but she's not shown too much class there.
Look at it the other way though - they could have slimmed down to 3 a while back and lobbed her out - instead she got to be a member of the team on circa £60-80K pa to ride her bike. Not the same as getting a medal but I'd have swapped places with her in a heart beat.
she's never quite seemed to have the class
Wouldn't expect less from the RAF, maybe if she'd been in the Army or Navy instead... 😉
You can't argue with the result but Wendy's point if view should be considered. The times were faster with her as part of the trio and one of the girls was sick the morning of the race.
"She had been vomiting and possibly not at 100% effectiveness, so I thought at that point I will be riding.
"I was told to get ready for the final but with 30 minutes to go I was told 'you're not riding' by Shane Sutton.
Not handled well by either party really
Everyone seems to be assuming she's wrong, maybe she's right, maybe they would have been faster with her riding, she says they rode faster in training with her in the team and there has been no rebuttal of that.
Just because British cycling has been hugely successful at these games doesn't mean its not a melting pot of politics and cliques, just like any other organisation or company.
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Having now watched the interview, wouldn't it have been even more unfair to drop one of the others who had actually ridden to make it to the final?
I can understand why she is upset and there appears to have been some poor communication from 'the management' if she is to be believed but when she almost managed to not smile when recollecting that one of her teammates was vommitting I thought hmmmmmm? Maybe the attitude was a bit suspect generally in training?
The fact that none of the winners contacted her afterwards either may speak volumes re how she was viewed by her teammates.
Having now watched the interview, wouldn't it have been even more unfair to drop one of the others who had actually ridden to make it to the final?
Well they would still have got a medal in that case.
Maybe it was bad timing to whinge now, but if what she says is true (not refuted by Brailsford), then you have to have at least a little sympathy for her.
I always feel a bit sad for Cav when he's sat in that commentators box, and everyone else in it is saying how wonderful it is that we're winning all those medals. That's got to grate a bit.
I read somewhere that Laura Trott routinely vomits before an event, so if it's that she's referring to it's neither here nor there I suppose.
She must be massively disappointed but she's not handling herself very well. If DB/Sutton have said one thing and done another that's bad, but they're there to win. And I'd be more inclined to believe they've said one thing and she's heard another.
Thinking about it again - it was important to have their best team for the first round to get the top seeding and the final but the semi was always going to be an absolute cake walk and with Laura Trott doing the omnium too this week they could have rested her and given Houvenaghel one round and therefore a medal. There are probably good reasons to do with balance and settling the team I don't understand which makes this rubbish.
Apparently the fifth rider on the mens team never rode either. Not sure we've heard him moaning though. I'm sure it's not fun to miss out on a gold but it's not about the individual, surely it's about the team and the best group for a gold medal.
And she will DEFINITELY be selected again now. Silly cow.
And she will DEFINITELY be selected again now. Silly cow.
Given she won't make Rio anyway, I don't suppose she's too bothered about that.
Houvenaghel has gone public with this, Romero had a proper toys out of the pram moment before she quit the sport & Peddleton looks to have had more than a little bit of a rocky relationship with the management, and there's Nicole Cooke on the road who has developed a terrible reputation for poor team spirit. Either Sutton and Brailsford are proper old skool unreconstructed blokes with poor people handling skills around women or they must have been wondering what the hell they had done wrong in a former life! As a former club mate of Danni King when she was young she is a lovely person to be around and so seems to be Laura Trott and Jo Roswell so it's not all bad.
I would feel the same if I had broken world records in training only not to get just 1 race in the finals. Put it this way imagine working your butt off for 4 years, for 3 people to take the money leaving you skint! You'd come on here crying and howling!
Put it this way imagine working your butt off for 4 years, for 3 people to take the money leaving you skint! You'd come on here crying and howling!
You would... but that's not what's happened, is it?
She has a case if they didnt win gold, but they did. Take one for the team. Simples. Act like a spoilt brat and be treated like one.
Given that Laura Trott is still competing you'd have thought she could have held it in a bit longer. Not exactly the best way of showing support for the team.....
She has a case if they didnt win gold, but they did
Well no - she has a case if they'd have been faster with her riding. All the gold medals and world records don't change that.
Well no - she has a case if they'd have been faster with her riding. All the gold medals and world records don't change that.
And the only people who really know what her performances are like relative to what everyone else is doing is the team management and coaches. And they made the call to not include her...
At face value (so taking the story as read, with Dave "Christ" Brailsford's comments), I have some sympathy for her. Unfashionable as it sounds in the face of all the jingoistic tubthumping. It does sound like she was done over, for whatever reason.
It does sound like she was done over, for whatever reason.
It just sounds to me like they had to pick 3 people from their squad to ride, which means someone was always going to be on the bench.
Has anyone come up with a good reason as to why they would leave out a stronger/faster rider?
Has anyone come up with a good reason as to why they would leave out a stronger/faster rider?
To give Trott a rest for one of the rounds (semi) given her busy program? Not saying they should have but it is pretty common practise in swimming for the heats.
Aye - but why [i]wouldn't[/i] they do that? There must have been a very good reason.
Has anyone come up with a good reason as to why they would leave out a stronger/faster rider?
Well it the team management that has to answer that as it apparently looks like that's what they did.
I can imagine that her bitterness is because they were clearly going to win regardless and if she'd been allowed to ride, all four would then have got gold medals - I can certainly see how that would grate.
But BC have time and again stated that they want to make professional decisions rather than personal ones and this seems to be very much a case of that. Harsh but fair basically. I guess that if they'd compromised in this instance, it would have ramifications from here on in whenever close selections were involved.
And the only people who really know what her performances are like relative to what everyone else is doing is the team management and coaches. And they made the call to not include her...
Not necessarily because the team wouldn't have been faster with her in it, which is the issue if what she says is true (the relevant point hasn't been refuted by the management).
You can't always compare performances though - eg the time that she's claimed may be on totally fresh legs whereas the time set in the final wasn't. Not to mention atmospheric conditions or even just one of the riders who on paper wouldn't have been replaced by her regardless having a slightly less good ride than expected.
£60,000 TO £80,000 certainly not from bc..
If she was on the fighting form she says, it does seem strange that they didn't rotate Trott out of a round or two to keep her fresh for the Omnium.
Maybe they wanted to give Trott a confidence boost ahead of the Omnium, or they're already thinking of the next Olympics, or they thought team moral overall would be better served by that combination of riders taking the gold... who knows?
They're probably thinking of maximising the medal tally, not setting the fastest possible times on the way to doing that.
they're already thinking of the next Olympics
The most likely answer I'd have thought. Doesn't stop such a selection decision being somewhat unfair on her though - it's the sort of non-objective thing which would be appealed if it were selection for an individual event.
£60,000 TO £80,000 certainly not from bc..
I don't know for sure but I think you'd be surprised! There was an interview during the GB athletics champs/trials and that was the figure that was used as what was given to our sprinters through lottery funding as a salary (not inc support costs etc). Given our sprinters are not true world beaters but our cyclists are I'd be surprised if they were on less.
Given our sprinters are not true world beaters but our cyclists are I'd be surprised if they were on less.
You may be suprised.
I know that in the early 2000s most of the rowers who won gold were on around low £20s 'salary' from the lottery while sprinters and the like who were not as good in their field were getting a fair bit more - it was a source of some annoyance to say the least...
And don't forget that they typically have to pay for travel/training camps/etc from that...
