awavey wrote:pjclinch wrote:mjr wrote:That'll be Chris Hoy who was successful as a talented amateur outside the BC system at first (because it was only just starting to get lottery funding), riding with City of Edinburgh RC and then Team Athena. Maybe he wouldn't have been AS successful without central funding, but who's to say that funding had to be from the lottery quasi-taxes? Also, if the Derby velodrome wasn't there, I'm pretty sure we had others, so would Huub Wattbike simply have based themselves at another?
I think Nicole Cooke's "The Breakaway" really casts some doubt on whether the Performance Programme approach has been efficient - or fair even to athletes who seem like they really ought to qualify for it by any objective measures.
So you'd have one more to add your list of outliers, but he'd still be an outlier, and lucky that Meadowbank happened to be there from a Commonwealth Games.
It's meaningless asking,
but who's to say that funding had to be from the lottery quasi-taxes?, because it was and the point I was making was that if it comes from what amounts to voluntary donations from lottery players then complaining you could use it for something general taxation should be used on is a moot point.
The Breakaway doesn't "cast some doubt" as much as shout out very clearly that as far as women's road racing went the elite programme was absolutely shocking when Cooke was (sort of...) part of it. But that's not really the point here, is it? Look at the strength in depth of the GB women's track endurance squad and compare that to any other state of play in British cycling strength in our lifetimes.
but again were they outliers to begin with ?
Possibly, but there's just too many of them for that to be likely.
You also need to look at the way outliers have other sports to choose from. Both of the Archibalds were pretty serious swimmers before they changed to cycling. Would Katie have changed to cycling if it had been the Boardman era profile, rather than the Trott/Rowsell/King era profile? Quite possibly not, I'd guess (aside from cleaning up at Highland Games where there was a big handicap for a teenage girl to help get the prize pot), and then less likely for John to follow her.
awavey wrote:but Id still believe the road racing side is still as shockingly bad as when Nicole was taking part, I dont think thats changed much at all because of the way the funding is linked only to medal/world championship success as the only measures
I don't think that's true. While the women are still at a serious disadvantage on the road compared to the men things appear to have improved a lot from Cooke's days. I don't want to suggest they haven't got a very long way still to go, but that's not the same as being the same.
Pete.
Often seen riding a bike around Dundee...