Bradley Wiggins caused a stir a couple of years ago when he identified a deficiency at British Cycling of “someone who actually knows what they’re talking about”.
The multiple Olympic champion was discussing Mark Cavendish’s non-selection for the Tokyo Olympics and regretting the rigid “box-ticking” of the national federation.
“They’d rather someone qualified for all the World Cups, then finished 10th in the Olympics. I think it’s shit, to be honest.”
How times have changed.
There has been a mini revolution at British Cycling in the last couple of years and Wiggins’ successors in the team pursuit are reaping the rewards.
“Previously it was very strict, very serious, very drilled,” Ethan Vernon, a key part of the quartet, tells Cyclingnews ahead of this week’s European Championships.
“It was all ‘you’ll live in Manchester, you’ll do what we say’. They wanted total priority over our road teams – ‘you’ll do our camps, you’ll do this and that But then Tokyo didn’t go to plan…”
Britain claimed just seven medals – three gold – at the Tokyo Games in 2021, a far cry from the six golds they won in Rio in 2016 and the seven from London 2012.
The results in Tokyo came after of a series of overhauls and restructures at management level, following the string of controversies surrounding allegations of bullying and harassment, not to mention the doping allegations surfaced at the medical trial of former doctor Richard Freeman.
The red tape Wiggins so hated became tighter but now things seem to have gone completely the other way, the shackles have loosened like never before.
“There was a big change-up at British Cycling. A lot of staff got fired and riders were moved on,” Vernon explains.
“Now we’ve got fresh ideas from higher up in management. It’s much more rider-focused. Previously riders had no say but now it’s completely the opposite.”
As such, Vernon and his pursuit colleagues, now working under head coach John Norfolk and men’s endurance coach Ben Greenwood, have been given freedom to pave their own path to the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
For starters, Dan Bigham, previously persona non grata, was allowed back into the fold, bringing with him his own aerodynamics expertise and even equipment from his own company, WattShop.
Bigham – whose full-time job is performance engineer at Ineos Grenadiers – has been a leading figure, as he, Vernon, Ethan Hayter, Ollie Wood, and Charlie Tanfield have come together to breathe new life into an event previously…
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