Mark Cavendish and Sir Bradley Wiggins was one of those reunions that came laden with great expectations, but could they live up to the billing? Too right. “Like the Stone Roses at Heaton Park in 2012,” Wiggins smiled afterwards. “Brilliant, fantastic. Everyone going home happy.”
They had saved the best for last, closing the Track World Championships in London yesterday with a showstopper. It was not only that the Cavendish-Wiggins British dream-team won, to became champions in the madison eight years after they had last triumphed in the same event, but the way they did it.
In a frenzied finale to the 200-lap race, the British duo rode like men fleeing a fire only for Cavendish to crash. As he clambered back on to another bike, these two greats of the British cycling boom had the velodrome rocking like it was 2012, roars that made a sweet sound for those in charge of Team GB.
We had wondered if British cycling would ever be the same, certainly on the track, compared to those heady days of the London Olympics. These worlds were the last major test before the Games in Rio de Janeiro, a signpost to an uncertain future.
Doubts remain over the construction of the velodrome in Rio but, over five days in London, the British team went some way to answering many questions about their readiness for the 2016 Games. We can be sure the medal haul will not match Beijing or London but the downturn may be less pronounced than we feared a week ago.
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Laura Trott has proven her class as the best female endurance rider on the planet; her fiancé, Jason Kenny, had come out of hibernation to restate his calibre as a gold-medal sprinter; Becky James has returned from injury and illness in the women’s sprints.
At 35, Wiggins’s hunger remains unsated and he could become Britain’s most decorated Olympian in Brazil if he can claim an eighth medal as a member of the team pursuit which finished second to Australia here but has reason to believe it can go faster.
And then there is Cavendish, such an intriguing option though, undoubtedly, a gamble. For all the thrills generated yesterday, the madison race has been kicked out of the Olympics for being too esoteric.
Cavendish will have to go to Rio in the multi-event omnium in which he finished sixth in London, while also doubling up as the fifth member of the team pursuit squad. His preparation for that will be five months back on the road, which is far from ideal.
Shane Sutton, British Cycling’s technical director, denies that it is a risk to pick Cavendish ahead of one of the dedicated track team, believing in the Manxman as a racer, a proven winner. On an emotional level, if not strictly Olympic qualifying criteria, Cavendish’s stirring triumph in the madison could be cited as further proof of his capabilities in Rio.
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Cavendish’s long quest for an Olympic medal is a saga in itself as the British coaches pause to weigh up the gains, the lessons to be learnt, from the past five days. Team GB does not rule the wooden boards with the authority of old but nine medals, five of them gold, surpassed any other nation and represented a timely return to podium form. “It’s been a good championships,” Sutton said. “Morale is sky high.”
It is certainly a big change from his message in Paris last year when there were no gold medals in the worlds for the first time since 2001, prompting talk of an end to an era. Sutton had predicted then that London 2016 would need to be “a big defining moment . . . If not, someone bring a gun.”
The Australian, who stepped up to take over the British team when Sir David Brailsford moved aside to concentrate on Team Sky in 2014, might have feared the firing squad after a wobbly start. The women’s team sprint missed the podium, and qualification for Rio, and then attacked the coaching staff. Then the women’s pursuit messed up in qualification. The men’s pursuit chopped and changed, not entirely successfully.
So there was reassurance in the final tally. This was far from 2008 (nine golds and two silvers in the worlds) or 2012 (13 medals including six golds) and it has to be remembered that of the five golds here, only two were in Olympic disciplines.
But in what Sutton had described as “a pressure cooker”, there was room to breathe by the end. Given a turnover in staff, losing people like Steve Peters, the team psychologist, over recent seasons, Sutton will have felt relief. For Rio, the hopes for British cycling extend far beyond the velodrome with Chris Froome among the favourites in the road race and the time trial, while Lizzie Armitstead and Emma Pooley will be notable contenders in the women’s road events. There is no end to the British cycling boom just yet.