Team pursuit silver is no reason to panic, insist British Cycling coaches

By Sportsbeat staff

BRITISH Cycling officials insist there is no reason to panic as they seek to defend their team pursuit title at the London 2012 Olympics.

CHALLENGE: Ed Clancy was a gold medallist in Beijing but will need to find a new level if he is to win another at London 2012 (British Cycling) 

The quartet of Ed Clancy, Geraint Thomas, Peter Kennaugh and Steven Burke were second quickest qualifiers at last weekend's UCI World Cup at the Olympic velodrome but were well-beaten by Australian world champions Jack Bobridge, Rohan Dennis, Alexander Edmondson and Michael Hepburn in the race for gold.

Since winning at the Beijing Olympics in a world record time, Great Britain have mustered just a silver and bronze at world level while Australia are two-time world champions - and look odds-on to win again on home soil in Melbourne in a few weeks.

But British men’s endurance coach Dan Hunt remains confident his team are improving - especially since Thomas and Kennaugh are only just returning to the track programme after focusing recent seasons on the road. 

“From a process point of view I’m pretty happy,” Hunt told British Cycling. 

“We wanted to ride a high 3:57 in qualifiers, we rode a 3:58. We set out to ride in and around 3:56 in the final and we’ve done that so we feel we’re on track and in a good place.

“From a result point of view it’s never nice, you’re going to feel like you’ve been punched in the gut but it’s about looking at ourselves.

"We are where we hope to be and we know that we’re moving forward and that we’ve got a little more to come - mixed emotions really.

“The key thing at times like these is not to panic, the easiest thing to do now to do is think ‘right we are behind we’ve got to squeeze, we’ve got to push’.

"We’ve got to look at the plan and if the plan needs changing based on cold logic and figures we’ll change it. I don’t think that’s the case, we need to go back into training - we only stepped out of training for five days for the track World Cup.”

With only a limited window of opportunity before the World Championships, Hunt said riders would engage in a training camp in Mallorca with Geraint Thomas and Pete Kennaugh’s programmes to include road racing. 

Hunt also indicated that the line-up was still open to change, with others, such as Ben Swift, in contention and performance director Dave Brailsford last year hinting that Bradley Wiggins, whose Olympic focus remains supporting Mark Cavendish in the road race and going for gold in the time trial, a possible, although unlikely, contender.

Hunt added: “We’ve got guys racing Paris-Nice, we’ve got guys racing West Flanders and we’ve got a training camp in place. 

"Then we’ll have a week and a half in Manchester then we fly to the worlds.

"Our line-up is by no means chosen, there are opportunities for everyone.”

© Sportsbeat 2012