Filed under: Other Sports, Cycling
The powers-that-be at British Cycling have never made a secret of the fact that there entire programme is built around Olympic success - eight golds in Beijing proved the fact.Thus, defeat at the World Championships for the veterans Sir Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton this weekend will be taken in context and create barely a ripple in BC headquarters in Manchester, at least in terms of the results.
Still 16 months from London 2012, Hoy and Pendleton will both, rightly, claim that they are merely on a curve towards peaking at the Olympics and, in that light, defeat in the sprint and keirin for Hoy, and the sprint for Pendleton, mean little.
Hoy lost an exciting keirin final to Aussie Shane Perkins, collecting a silver to go with the bronzes he won in the team sprint and the individual sprint, a more than respectable haul even if this was the first keirin World Championship final he had failed to win in four attempts.
"Shane is a worthy winner today but I am there or thereabouts," Hoy told journalists afterwards. "I'm proud of my performances this week. I know I'm not far away from it and when I'm at my best it's going to take a pretty special performance to beat me in London. I will have a two week rest now and then its back to training.
"It been a tiring four days, not just the physical side but it's the emotional and mental side of getting yourself up after you've lost a race and fighting back. It's energy-sapping. I'm emotionally and physically exhausted right now."
Of greater concern for Hoy, given the UCI's decision to have only one rider from each country in London, is the battle he faces with team mate Jason Kenny for the spot in the individual sprint. At these Worlds in Apledoorn, Holland, Kenny defeated Hoy in the individual sprint semis and the battle for that solitary place in London is going to be one of the storylines of British cycling in 2012.
For Pendleton, there was defeat in the sprint semis to her nemesis, the peerless Aussie Anna Mears. But Pendleton won one of their three heats in superb fashion against Mears and took bronze, from Olga Panarina of Belarus, in a manner which suggested that her form is not far from where it should be.
As ever, Pendleton's biggest challenge is likely to come from herself with the rider openly admitting that the mental pressures of the sport are her biggest problem.
"I'm not in the best form but I'm working on a two-year plan" Pendleton told the Daily Telegraph. "You have got to have confidence and patience in your form and stick to your plan. I've been in every semi-final since 2003, so I don't think that's a bad run. Anna Meares is in the form of her life and I'm not but don't write me. My legs feel quite good so I am going to give it my best shot in my final event, the keirin."
With four of the five days completed at the Worlds, a return of one gold - the women's team pursuit - looks like a modest return for GB although the first four days did bring a total of eight medals in the events that will be on the Olympic schedule next year.
And the excellent form of the younger riders on the GB squad continued in the women's scratch race when Dani King, 20, a member of the pursuit team, took a well-deserved bronze.
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