Sir Chris Golden Hoy
An interesting thing happen on the way to the Pringle...
The Brits took a huge bite and devoured nine medals, seven gold, three on the road including Bradley Wiggins time trial gold. The man behind it all, is British Cycling's performance director Dave Brailsford. He stopped critics in their tracks predicting a British Tour winner and Olympic gold in the same year.
Lot's of hard work, preparation and money.
Since 1996, from a disappointing Atlanta Games Lottery funding began, along the years add in an high level elite performance system fueled London's cycling success. An eye-popping amount of 265 million pounds in funding, in the last four years, was kicked in by UK Sport. They call it " medals mean money."
Smaller cycling nations (under funded) like Canada can only imagine it. So far Canada's cycling lone medal is a bronze in the women's 3 km Team Pursuit and this Saturday Catharine Pendrel (no. 1 ranked) is a golden hope in the women's mountain bike race. Back at the Games in Beijing she was fourth, missing the podium by nine seconds.
The Brits will bring their A game, Annie Last is their top favorite. Canada will have World Champion Catharine Pendrel and Emily Batty.
A Canadian gold medal?... I'll bet on that!
Pendrel for Gold!
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