It has been a tumultuous few years for British Cycling after a period of unprecedented success in Olympic events. In 2016, the team travelled to Rio de Janeiro after the storm that led to the resignation of technical director Shane Sutton, following allegations of discrimination, and still managed to continue their dominance in the velodrome. In the Olympic cycle leading up to Tokyo, there have been significant challenges over the culture at British Cycling’s headquarters in Manchester and the recent case involving Richard Freeman, the former team doctor, who was found to have purchased testosterone for an unnamed rider.
The rest of the world, meanwhile, has been steadily catching up and senior figures at British Cycling have said that it is unrealistic to expect the dominance of previous Olympic Games to continue.
Yet the gold medal won by Charlotte Worthington in freestyle BMX yesterday means that Great Britain’s track riders go into the velodrome today with the nation already leading the way in the cycling medal table. Worthington’s gold and a bronze for Declan Brooks in the men’s freestyle event were added to the victories by Bethany Shriever in the BMX racing and Tom Pidcock in the mountain biking, plus the silver medal won by Kye White in the men’s BMX race. The medal target set for Britain’s cyclists is eight and they are already more than halfway there as the velodrome programme begins.
The velodrome had always been the primary focus of Britain’s medal efforts across previous Olympic cycles, partly because of the controllable aspects of a number of track events, but the switch to a broader focus had been very much part of the planning in this Olympic cycle, with a view to boosting participation in the sport further as well. “Where we have really wanted to focus attention over the last four years is over the diversity into other disciplines,” Stephen Park, the performance director of British Cycling, said. “Hopefully that will serve well to inspire the wider cycling community, the wider public, who are interested in cycling in other disciplines outside the track.”
There is, nevertheless, no shortage of British medal aspirations in the velodrome this week. After an era of remarkable success was kicked off by seven medals on the track in Beijing, a further seven followed in London and six more came in the velodrome in Rio. Similar dominance is not expected in Tokyo, but there is also an air of unpredictability around the events in the velodrome, given the lack of global events since the Covid pandemic disrupted international competition. As track cycling is held indoors, it has been particularly badly hit.
Advertisement
The world’s best track cyclists have not competed together since the UCI World Track Championships in Berlin in February and March last year. “The biggest difference is that we’re not sure what everyone else is going to bring to the party in Tokyo,” Jason Kenny said. “None of us has seen the competition in action for such a long time, so we’re all second-guessing each other’s form. I think we’re going quite well, but we don’t know how we compare with others. On the grapevine you hear rumours about one nation or another smashing it in training, but you don’t really know until everyone goes to the same place and puts it all on the line.”
Kenny will begin the defence of the three Olympic titles he won in Rio tomorrow, riding in the team sprint alongside Jack Carlin and Ryan Owens, with the individual sprint and the keirin to follow. The main threat to British hopes in these events is likely to come from the powerful Netherlands squad, who dominated the men’s sprinting in Berlin. Harrie Lavreysen won the individual sprint, Matthijs Buchli claimed keirin gold and the Dutch trio won the team sprint, with the British team out of the medals.
Laura Kenny will begin her own quest to win three gold medals today in the heats of the team pursuit, with the medals to be decided tomorrow. After winning gold in both the team pursuit and the omnium in both London and Rio, she will also compete alongside Katie Archibald in the madison, which is included in the Olympic programme for the first time for women. In the team pursuit, three of the quartet who won gold in Rio — Kenny, Archibald and Elinor Barker — have made it to Tokyo, with Neah Evans and Josie Knight the other squad members.
The men’s team pursuit also begins today, with Ed Clancy the only one of the four riders who were victorious in Rio — Bradley Wiggins, Steven Burke and Owain Doull were the others — still in the squad. Clancy, 36, is the senior statesman in a group that also includes Ethan Hayter, Ethan Vernon, Matt Walls and Ollie Wood, none of whom is older than 25. Along with Jason Kenny, Clancy provides a link back to the Beijing Games, where they both won the first of their Olympic medals, and they will be looking to stretch that golden thread a little further this week.
