London 2012 Olympics: Team GB tireless in the pursuit of perfection as they seek to retain Beijing Games title
Four years ago at the dusty but super-quick Laoshan Velodrome on the outskirts of Beijing, the world witnessed a Beamonesque performance by Great Britain in the men’s team pursuit which appeared to redefine the sport.
By Brendan Gallagher
6:55AM BST 01 Aug 2012
Sir Steve Redgrave, an expert on four-man British teams pushing back the sporting barriers, described their time of 3min 53.314sec for the 4km event as the athletic performance of the Games (perhaps notwithstanding Usain Bolt). The Great Britain quartet of Ed Clancy, Paul Manning, Geraint Thomas and Bradley Wiggins smashed Australia’s world record twice in 24 hours. Even for non-cycling fans there was a wow factor in those performances.
That record has already been bettered by Great Britain, at this year’s World Championships in April, and both the British and Australian quartets expect to threaten the previously unthinkable 3min 50sec barrier at the Velodrome when the team pursuit starts tomorrow.
“When you have two or three exceptional teams going at it hard, there’s always a good chance the times will start tumbling,” Shane Sutton, the head coach of the GB track squad, says. “That’s what is happening right now, with Australia stepping right up to the plate again and New Zealand and Russia pressing hard. In a pure timed event, fierce competition is always going to result in breakthroughs but the really strange thing about Beijing is that, with all due respect to the others, we were out on our own that year. The biggest breakthrough in the event’s history came after a battle with ourselves. It actually came because we were simply sick to death of finishing second and third. There was a mental hurdle as well as physical.”
Before the Beijing Olympics GB had not won a gold medal in the team pursuit since London in 1908 when it was contested over just 2km. They had been close for much of that time with nine bronze medals and two silvers, the last of which had come in Athens in 2004.
“We won bronze in Sydney and silver in Athens but actually we were standing still in terms of time while teams like Germany and then Australia were accelerating the event to new levels,” Sutton says. “We were missing a trick somewhere and it was driving us mad. In one way it’s so simple – get three, preferably four riders 16 times around a 250m track as quickly as possible. And in other ways it’s so incredibly complicated.”
Sutton is referring to the application of science and use of data that became a crucial part of Great Britain’s training regime. But the initial impetus for their subsequent improvement came from an old fashioned “gut feeling” from Sutton, who spends his life assessing riders and their potential and asking himself the silent question 'What if?’
“We looked at the event every which way after Athens before the penny dropped about two years later,” he says. “Eureka, we suddenly realised that you could ride faster with a mix of riders with different talents, not just four out-and-out individual pursuiters. It was staring us in the face, the bleedin’ obvious. What we needed was more speed. It was soon after that the dramatic improvements started to come.
“I suppose 'discovering’ Ed Clancy was the catalyst. As a track rider Ed was a brilliant young 1km time-trial prospect, he was probably going to be the long-term successor to Sir Chris Hoy at that distance – except the UCI [International Cycling Union] dropped the kilo from the Olympics after Athens.
“So what to do now with Ed? There was some endurance there as well as speed. Could he contribute to the team pursuit?”
He could – and Great Britain’s performances in Beijing are testimony to that. The flying start that Clancy provides – his power output can top 1,300 watts in his opening lap and half as he launches GB into action – builds an almost unstoppable momentum.
Such an approach can only work for a squad that can handle that extra speed and stress levels. Even tucked away in the three or four position for a lap or two a rider will be producing 700 watts while, after the initial burn from Clancy, the lead man will be hitting 900, cutting a way through the air for the quartet.
Heartbeat levels will be about 200 a minute, possibly quicker. In mid-race the leg cadence almost defies your eyes, hitting 130rpm with each revolution progressing the bike 108 inches on a normal gearing. This is savage work.
With the riders building up more lactic acid earlier in the race than previously they had to start logging up hundreds of hours on the road, mostly uphill, to try to build up a resistance to that hydrogen in their blood and muscles.
Before 2004 they had dabbled in such training, now it underpins everything. Mountain camps in Majorca are now nearly as common as track sessions in Manchester while, in the current GB squad, Thomas completed the Giro d’Italia in May and Peter Kennaugh is another hybrid who will achieve big things in future Grand Tours.
Even back in November GB were beasting themselves in a three-sessions-a-day boot camp in Manchester, during which they ate 6,000 calories a day. Keeping that lactic acid at bay is now the holy grail of team pursuiting.
Never more than this momentous week. The International Olympic Committee has scheduled Friday’s final just one hour and 10 minutes after the four fastest teams from qualifying have ridden off for a place in the gold medal race. The Olympic title could be won or lost in the time spent off the bike. Great Britain have dubbed this the “golden hour” and sports scientist Esme Taylor has been working on making the most of it ever since the schedule was announced last year, taking measurements as GB deliberately do all their main training efforts an hour apart.
“We want to eliminate most of the lactic acid as quickly as possible, so I’ve been diving in during that hour taking blood samples to record lactic levels to form a picture of what is going on,” she says.
“Typically one of the riders will record 18-19 millimoles per litre blood lactic when they get off the bike, which is sky high – two would be a normal reading for an athlete at rest – and that in the best-case scenario might reduce to five or six after an hour.
“But the really interesting point is that everybody’s level reduces at a different rate and that means, if GB reach the final, we will have to tailor their warm-down and warm-up individually. We have looked into a couple of other related things but I can’t divulge them at present.”
The GB backup team play a vital role with team pursuit coach Dan Hunt co-ordinating their efforts, some of which are scientific like Taylor’s, some more prosaic. Take Luc de Wilde, for example, the Belgian who is the squad’s main masseur.
“I will know instantly when a rider has 'good legs’,” he says. “There will be a tightness and tension in the muscles that falls short of a cramp, an energy that transmits itself. You learn when not to work too hard on those occasions. The massage table tends to be something of a confessional as they unwind and tell you their worries.
“Like a priest I will always observe personal confidences but if all of the squad suddenly started expressing the same specific cycling concern or worry I would find a way of letting the management know that there is an area of general concern. I talk all the time anyway to Dan about their physical condition.”
Team GB’s quest for perfection is epitomised by their head mechanic, Ernie Fairgrieve, widely regarded as one of the best in the business, a “marginal-gains” disciple if ever there was one. “We examine the bike frames constantly and date mark every single wheel so we know exactly how old they are and what service they have seen,” he says.
“We inspect them before and after every ride and if there is the slightest nick or mark we bin them. We document every single change of gearing we ever do on the lads’ bikes, in training and racing, so that it can be related directly to what the performance analyst has recorded with regards to output and conditions for that ride.
“The memory plays tricks, this way we have it there in black and white. Before a race we 'gas’ the tubes as late as possible to 105psi. Do that too early and they can lose pressure before the start line.
“These things matter. Everybody in the backroom team is here to totally serve the riders. Their dedication inspires us and it’s the very least we can do. They are very high-quality individuals. To this day every time I help Ed Clancy, the start man, up on to his bike on the line he says 'thank you’.
“He even remembered before the Beijing final. It’s impossible not to go the extra mile for people like that.”
If you look for perfection you will never be content, said Tolstoy. Team GB clearly do not buy into that. Tomorrow they intend to prove it.
