Brailsford: Not my decision to include David Millar in provisional squad

Posted: Friday 15th June 2012 | 17:50

BRITISH Cycling performance director Dave Brailsford says it was not his decision to include David Millar in Team GB's provisional road race squad.

AT HIS DISPOSAL: David Brailsford selected who was eligible for this summer's Olympics earlier this week

Brailsford, also general manager of Team Sky, this week announced the 35-year-old was on the shortlist to go to London 2012.

He highlights his role is to put together a squad that will win medals, and feels that if Millar goes, his team will not be affected by the media focus.

"It wasn't my decision to select David Millar in this shortlist," said the 48-year-old.

"Ultimately it's the BOA ‘s team - the BOA decide it's policy and the policy that they decide is who's eligible and tell me, line them up against the wall and I have to pick the fastest team.

"Professionally, I've been told who to select and then it's my job to select the fastest team. I didn't persuade David. It was his choice, his decision and that's up to him.

"Once you're in that Games environment, you're shielded anyway because the media can't get in.

"From our point of view, when we select the team, being honest, we have a look at the physical performances of this guy, what are the implications and ramifications of this guy on the group dynamics.

"Being the first event of the first day, it's something to speculate and talk about, so we've got to be able to manage that. I'm fairly sure that we can, but that would get taken into consideration for."

Brailsford, Millar aside, says organising his plans for a home Olympics has proved more of a challenge that he expected.

Having been to a security-conscious Athens in 2004 and an alien culture in Beijing in 2008, Brailsford and his team initially struggled with the challenges of friends, family and home comforts.

He said: "A home Olympics is very much a different scenario than we're used to. You're kind of used to a different continent normally. You have to find your way around. You couldn't hire a car - you couldn't rock up to Hertz in Beijing and say I want that car, you couldn't do it.

"We're used to having our own little ways of moving around. Back in Sydney, we weren't in the village, we were outside.

"In Athens, we were in complete lockdown because of security and every time we went out on the bike, we police riders with rifles on their legs following us. It was quite scary and intimidating. You get used to the challenge of it all.

"It seems like a less of a challenge in many respects. I think that's a danger because you can get lulled into a sense of not as much to prepare.

"You get three tickets. If you've got your parents, wife or husband and kids even, who gets the ticket? We've had to set up a friends and family project to protect the riders, but it's just not something we'd ever had to deal with. It's different from a normal Games in that sense."