1/ Why doesn’t it? We’re talking fractions of a second, not country miles.

eg: handwashing. If an athlete spends a week a year ill because of avoidable colds, that disrupts their training program by 2%. Doesn’t mean they’re automatically 2% slower, but if that can be avoided simply by avoiding shaking hands and by using hand sanitisers, why wouldn’t you? Just because no-one thought of it first doesn’t mean it’s not valid.

2/ To use your Sherlock Holmes analogy. After all other possible explanations have been exhausted, whatever remains, however unbelievable / unpalatable must be the truth. You seem to be suggesting that selecting the best athletes, giving them the best equipment and best training techniques, ekeing out every tiny possible improvement and adding them all together, and then planning the whole 4 years around being the very best you possibly can be for a week in August – none of these things explain why we are unbeatable (* which we aren’t; Vogel / Ligtlee / Viviani all beat us, plenty others were bloody close) while for the other 47.5 months we’re ordinary (* we aren’t; plenty of World class performances / titles in the interim too). So all that leaves is……

Is that what you think?

Gains are not bobbins, but to assume somehow that coaches do not move teams and share all the techniques etc is just naive. So the marketing by BC that somehow the secret sauce stays in the GB camp over time is just that – marketing.

There was an interview on the bbc web site with a new GB coach who just moved from russia to france to GB. He basically said there is little difference and the knowledge whether it be technical or sports coaching is pretty much identical. He said what does matter is how much money is spent on logn term programmes, and this does change per team. Much like in business.

the continued funding/amount of funding is based on Gold medals count isn’t it? If so it does only matter every 4 years, no point spending time and effort wining the world championships and other races as nobody cares who wins those

I said last night – she definitely out-noused Katy Marchant. And then I’m not convinced Becky James isn’t actually that fast over the longer drawn out sprints – she has an amazing turn of speed over a short distance, for example in the Kierin but only from a point where it wasn’t quite enough to close the gaps completely; and Vogel just went early enough to draw the sting. Beaten by tactics, but they all count.

Bmx seeding runs are on now.
Nasty face plant off the first jump…

Well informed commentator that seems stuck on aero’ and why don’t they wear skinsuits.
Didn’t Rob Warner do the London Olympics commentary.

It appears the bmx qualifiers are on!

Fun to watch the BMX, great skill and must be hard work. Just looks wrong though – no disrespect to the riders (and I wish I could jump and pump like that) but still looks like dads riding their kids bikes!!

Would be fun to try that track though

So the fella in the velodrome wasn’t the only one who was quick on the draw.

Did I miss the BMX quali-s, damn who knew ? 😉

Political Correctness gone totally mad re: Boardman’s remark.

Jamba, qualifying is tomorrow, time trails for seeding for the qualis tonight. Not convinced by the track especially the ‘road gap’ at the end of the third. Will wait to see what bar to bar racing brings.

Hmm, watched a couple of runs (inc Daudet & Phillips) then turned the telly off. Really don’t find it exciting or even interesting, maybe if they had their mums chasing them telling them to get home as it’s time for tea and they have homework to do it would be better 😛

Sorry if it’s your thing but it’s not for me. I’m oot!

Where’s the hate? I said I wasn’t interested – big difference.

I think the line about mums calling them home for tea – though it’s a fairly gentle sort of hating and I’m laughing along with you rather than at you!

Let’s be honest; as a grown up riding any sort of bikes whether it be around the block, around the woods, over jumps, down hills – it’s all daft. In fact all sport’s daft. I’d ban it all, apart from the fact that it’s bloody brilliant and is a major contributor to the fact that we don’t all get morbidly depressed and kill ourselves.

Pretty much everything in life needs to have some sort of fun extracted from it.

Thinking back to my day – the race would start not with the ‘Watch the Gate’ call, rather my mum screeching ‘JONNY! TEATIME!’ from 3 miles away; and as well as the usual berms and jumps, would include some dogshit to weave around and also being shouted at by the farmer for taking a short cut through his yard rather than around the footpath.

I’d also like to see ‘negotiating the rhythm section’ to be replaced by ‘negotiating with the rhythm section’ in which racers have to broker a settlement in Morrissey and Marr vs Joyce and Rourke before moving on to the final big set of doubles.

Snapped bikes and massive stacks all good so far!

Ah well, Sagan in the mountain bike race in a few days and not forgetting the Vuelta starts on Saturday.

He wasn’t ruling out Tokyo in the way he seemed to be a couple of days ago…

I suspect that in four years he wont win many more sprints as the fast twitch muscles dont quite hold off the younger guys any more .Lets hope he wins 5 more TDF stages to have the record

I was thinking he may plan the end of his career that way as well