The Renaissance of Competitive Cycling in Britain

The Renaissance of Competitive Cycling in Britain

During the first decade of the 21st century, a remarkable transformation occurred in British competitive cycling. For most of the 20th century, riders from France, Italy, Belgium, and Spain dominated international competitive cycling. In Britain, competitive cycling attracted few participants and little spectator interests. Between 1920 and 1991 no British cyclist has won Olympic gold for the entire 20th century no Briton had one any of the world’s big-three road races (the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a Espana).  In the Tour de France, only three Britons had ever worn the yellow jersey for winning a single stage (Tommy Simpson 1962; Sean Yates 1994; Chris Boardman 1994, 1997, 1998).

With the new millennium, all this changed. British cyclists dominated the cycling medals table in the 2008, 2012, and 2016 summer Olympic Games and between 2011 to 2017, British riders won the Tour de France every year but one.

Several factors contributed to this turnaround. In 1992, Chris Boardman triggered popular interest in competitive cycling by becoming the first Briton to win Olympic cycling gold in 72 years. In 1994, the National Cycle Center opened in Manchester providing a world-class training facility for British cyclists. In 1997, the British government, embarrassed by the country’s abysmal showing at the 1996 Atlanta Games, began to direct National Lottery money to develop elite athletes.  Yet, it seems unlikely that these favorable developments would have had a substantial impact on the performance of British cycling without the role of the British Cycling Federation—generally known as British Cycling—the governing body for the sport of cycling. British Cycling was outstandingly successful in pursuing the dual goals of delivering international sporting success while broadening participation in cycling, both as a sport and as a recreational activity.

After the Beijing Olympics in 2008, British Cycling was viewed as a model for other sports—including football where, despite the incredible commercial success of the English Premier League, the national team appeared incapable of competing at the international level. The coaches and executives of British cycling what had led the turnaround were soon festooned with national honors and were leading players on the corporate lecture circuit.

Yet, it was clear that the outstanding success of British Cycling had come at a cost.  By 2014, these same lauded coaches and executives were immersed in several controversies. These included the possibility that former British Olympic performance director.. had been involved in supplying performance enhancing substances to British cyclists and allegations that the intense performance-at-all-cost culture instituted within British cycling had led to an intolerant, abusive culture that was discriminatory against women and disabled riders. These controversies led to the departure of several leading members of British Cycling.

Performance

Figure 1 and Table 1 show the transformation in the international performance of British cyclists since 2000.  This performance turnaround is evident in the performance of both men and women and in both track and road events. However, the performance leap is apparent primarily in the highest profile competition: the summer Olympics and the Tour de France. In other competition, notably the UCI world championships and other international road races, British cyclists has demonstrated the same outstanding performance (see Tables 2 and 3).

 [pic 1]

Table 1.  General classification winners of the Big-3 international road races, 2007-17.