Marginal gains

Out of the possible 18 golds for cycling in the London Olympics, Great Britain won 8 while ten countries shared the spoils. Britain was so dominant that Frenchman Gregory Bauge, who came in second to Jason Kenny in the Match Sprint, questioned Kenny after the post-race press conference how Kenny, whom Bauge had dominated the past 18 months, managed to beat him so handily for the gold.

While the question seemed normal from someone who couldn’t believe he lost to an inferior rival, I think that Bauge was clearly insinuating about Kenny and performance enhancing drugs.Well, as far as I’m concerned, I don’t really care if Jason Kenny ever took PED’s until the UCI officially says that he did. But how did his form, and the rest of the British cycling team, metamorphosed into a band of Super Heroes?

It all started in 1992, when Chris Boardman won Britain’s gold in cycling after 70 years that Great Britain started to “believe”. From then on, a program was set, which in principle was to improve not only the performance of the athletes but also an improvement of their equipment’s. However, instead of creating a super bike or a super athlete, they rebooted their program and adopted the “marginal gains” policy, where instead of creating the lightest bike frame, they would instead create the lightest bolt, the most aerodynamic helmet, the most slippery fabric, or the optimal nutrition. Also included in the programs were the best mechanics, physiotherapists and psychologists. In fact, they even built their own bike frames from the ground up! Added together, it would result in a product so radical and probably more successful from the previous ones.

The impact wasn’t felt initially in 1996 where they only garnered 2 medals, both bronzes. In the 2000 Olympics, they got 1 gold, a silver and 2 bronzes, yet they were not fazed. In 2004, they got 2 golds and a silver and a bronze. And then in Beijing, it finally came together and the results showed with 14 medals, 8 of them gold. Their superiority attracted the attention of the UCI who rewrote the rules that allowed only one entry per nation per event, to level the playing field and to minimize a podium occupied by the Brits.

The surprising thing about this program was that Great Britain not only ruled the velodrome but also the road, winning the World Road Championships last year with Mark Cavendish and the Tour de France with Bradley Wiggins this year. And BTW, the runner up to Wiggins was another Brit, Chris Froome.

Britain may be celebrating now, but sporting fortunes comes in waves. Sooner or later, some country will get it all together.I hope that I’d see the day that we’d have a really serious program and ride the crest of the wave. It’s easy for you and me to be discouraged about our sports program but as long as Olympics and the Tour de France and all the great events will still be run, I know that we’ll see the light.