Great Britain now truly a cycling nation

From the BBC:

David Bond | 18:01 UK time, Tuesday, 27 September 2011

With Mark Cavendish delivering Britain's first world title in road
cycling for 46 years, is the sport now Britain's most successful?

UK Sport certainly seems to think so.

The government agency responsible for funding our elite Olympic
athletes told me that in medal terms alone cycling is the best
performer since the introduction of lottery funding in 1997.

Here are some statistics which back up that argument.

Since 2001 British Cycling has won a total of 103 world championship
and Olympic medals on the track and on the road.

The only sports which come close to that level of success are rowing
and sailing, with Britain's rowers winning 51 senior world
championship medals over the same period.

As ever with statistics they need some qualification. Rowing does not
have a world championships in Olympic year so, again, the number of
medals up for grabs is lower.
Mark Cavendish sprints to title

Perhaps the last three years provides a better measure with rowing
winning 27 medals - just four behind cycling for the same period.

But whichever way you slice it, cycling's return is extremely
impressive.

In financial terms, it is also one of British sport's biggest success
stories.

Over the last 10 years British Cycling has received just under £44m,
which works out at £417, 475 per medal.

Compare that to athletics which received more money than cycling -
£50m - but has won just 36 medals since 2001.

Again this comes with a hefty footnote as athletics hosts its world
championships every two years instead of annually.

And UK Athletics will no doubt point out that winning medals in
athletics is harder than any other sport because of the sheer number
of countries and top athletes competing for the top places.

That is undoubtedly true. But the financial calculation is quite
revealing nonetheless. In athletics the cost per medal in the last 10
years is £1.4m - three times more expensive than in cycling.

Despite all this British Cycling is preparing for London 2012 knowing
it is likely to win less than the 14 medals it won in Beijing in 2008.

That is because the sport's world governing body, the UCI, has dropped
two events - the individual pursuit and the Madison - to ensure
greater parity between men and women.

But with Cavendish leading GB country to the top of this year's road
world championships medal table in Denmark, there is every chance that
any shortfall on the track could be plugged by this new success on the
road.

British Cycling's performance director Dave Brailsford, says we are
now a "genuine cycling nation". It is becoming increasingly hard to
argue against that.


Telegram Spam