Chris Newton hopeful of British Cycling revival
Chris Newton, the defender of the home nations’ riders at Delhi games has claimed that Britain cycling team would make to the top by the London Olympics 2012. Amid the health issues and the clash with the European championships, the team had to rely upon
comparatively inexperienced and new cyclists for representation in the Delhi games.
With most of the renowned British stars absent from the competition, it was predetermined for Australia to dominate the velodrome. Australia bagged 12 out of the 14 gold medals of the discipline.
Giving his views about his team’s performance at the Delhi games Newton said that they were going to take it on their chin and would bounce back with equal force in the coming London event. Newton, who bagged gold medal for English side in the Commonwealth
games held in 2000 as well as a silver medal in the Olympics and a number of bronze medals throughout his career, is currently serving as the endurance coach for England’s under 23 men’s team.
While explaining the situation, the 36-year-old English coach said that the decision to take part into European championships which was also an Olympic qualifying event had hurt his team’s performance at Delhi. Had the senior and more experienced players
not to go there, the English representation in the Commonwealth games could have been better. Amid the European championships, even Sir Chris Hoy, the triple gold medallist at the Beijing Olympics and Victoria Pendleton was unable to defend sprint titles.
Similarly, Rebecca Romero and Bradley Wiggins, the English winners at the Beijing Olympics could not make themselves available for the Delhi event.
The absentees of the stellar performers were further aided by excuses of Welsh Geraint Thomas, Ian Stannard and Ben Swift and Peter Kennaugh. All of them denied their participation in the Delhi Commonwealth games amid the concerns about contracting illness
in India. However, for optimistic Newton, this provided an opportunity to the British Cycling to help its new batch of riders to gain experience by participating in a large, multi-sport event.
Pondering upon the performance of his riders, Newton told that the average age of his team was 19, which meant they were in their first year of “Under 23 rider”. Hence, the primary aim for all of them was to gain experience at a large event, and if possible,
gain some success as well.
Looking quite content with the performance of his riders Newton said that some of them have depicted marvellous potential; George Atkins, the 19-year-old rider bagged a silver medal in the points race, he was a little behind the world class Cameron Meyer
from Australia. Mark Christian from Isle of Man also rode quite well in the event.
Pointing out an important factor Newton said that his team eventually got separated into five, while the Australian riders stayed together. He acknowledged the performance of the Australian rivals and said that they had made a strong comeback after a disappointing
performance in Beijing which was completely dominated by the British riders.
An interesting aspect of Britain’s success in Beijing Olympics was that it prompted world cycling governing body, the International Cycling Union to make sweeping changes for the track programme. Though the organization itself might claim the otherwise,
but it brought many laws into the selection and participation criteria which laid the foundation to avoid the possible domination of the British riders in the Olympics 2012.
Commenting upon the new rules, Newton said that England’s whitewash did not help it as now the international cycling union had combined a lot of cycling events into one. Now the riders would be competing into a number of events for one medal. He was of the
view that by bringing in new rules cycling was made tough and there was a need of consideration for the fact that endurance cycling on the track may kill someone.
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