by huw williams » Sun Aug 24, 2008 10:08 am
There's nothing wrong the journalism in that piece. He's merely reporting the fact that other nations, particularly the French, are questioning the success that Team GB had and given Dave Brailsford a chance to defend them
Unfortunately this is merely a sign of the times and the consequence of having so much success Any time a nation so dominates a sport the rest of the world will shoot arrows at you - we've done it in the past when China suddenly started winning potfulls of medals and as soon as someone comes up with a dominant world class performance, one of our athletes (usually Kelly Southerton) is quick to point the finger. So we can't be surprised when other nations point the finger at us particularly as most of our success has come in cycling, with all its history of drug-cheats.
Michael Johnson is right. When a government throws a load of money and the best coaches in the world at an already talented group of athletes - the kind of results team GB cyclists delivered should be (and was) the expectation rather than any big surprise.