Shane Sutton believes that British Cycling needs to let it young track stars slow down and develop after an impressive performance at the Track World Cup in Manchester this weekend.
The women’s pursuit team, comprised of Laura Trott, Dani King, Joanna Rowsell and Elinor Barker, broke the world record twice on the way to a gold medal, with double track world champion in Minsk 21-year-old Becky James taking silver in the keirin.
Trott, 21, won the omnium with 24-year-old Rowsell beating off the competition to claim the individual pursuit title at the National Cycling centre.
Coach Shane Sutton though thinks it is time to let the talented bunch of riders pause after a dizzying rise to the top of the cycling world.
“This Olympic cycle we’ve attacked it totally differently because we went pretty full-on in the first worlds after, because we’ve got young talent,” Sutton said.
“That talent rose to the top very quickly in Minsk (in February), to a point now where we’ve got to take them back a little bit, develop them and make them understand what it’s going to take to win even bigger.”
Another prospect was unearthed at the meet with 20-year-old Scottish ride Katie Archibald taking a surprise bronze in the individual pursuit, which Sir Dave Brailsford put down to the improvements in the British Cycling system.
“The average age of the team has decreased quite dramatically over the years, which is probably a function of the work being done lower down, bringing the talent through quicker,” he said.
“One thing that has happened is that the time it takes to get to the podium has come down considerably We used to work on an eight-year period to get them onto the podium, now that’s come down to an Olympic cycle.”
Despite having not focussed on the Commonwealth games when they were in Delhi in 2010, Brailsford thinks that now the timing is right for the present crop of riders.
“For Glasgow it makes absolute sense for the age and experience of this group to go there and take it very seriously,” Brailsford said.
“We can use this as great experience for the youngsters to experience what it’s like to try to hit a peak in the middle summer, rather than March. We’ll be taking all of those elements into the Commonwealth Games.”
Image courtesy of Broadcast Exchange via YouTube, with thanks.
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