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Felix English Interview

  • 11-11-2010 3:48pm
    #1
    Junior
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,238 ✭✭✭


    Felix English has done an Interview for Velonation with Shane Stokes...

    One of the things that he said that stood out glaringly for me was this

    I am now part of the Irish Elite Senior Track Team, which has been trimmed down to two riders; Martyn Irvine and myself.

    Which may reflect that DoL's words have had serious repercussions.

    Read more: Here


Comments

  • #2
    RobFowl
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 11,669 Mod ✭✭✭✭RobFowl


    Junior wrote: »
    Felix English has done an Interview for Velonation with Shane Stokes...

    One of the things that he said that stood out glaringly for me was this

    I am now part of the Irish Elite Senior Track Team, which has been trimmed down to two riders; Martyn Irvine and myself.

    Which may reflect that DoL's words have had serious repercussions.

    Read more: Here

    I think that was fairly clear already. The mens team pursuit project was abandoned simply because they were not fast enough.
    There are only 5 Olympic events now. Team pursuit, Omnium, Keirin, team sprint and match sprint.
    6 of the carded men were funded purely for the team pursuit so once they had their funding withdrawn they either to continue competing with their own funding or move on.
    DOL really only had the choice of continuing on to ride the IP and maybe the points events at world cup and World championship level or else retire. As the sports council only fund Olympic events he would have had to find other sponsorship to do this.
    He's far more likely to get sponsorship for the road so thats the route he's chosen.

    I personally think the UCI has transformed track racing for the worse by making the Olympics so heavily weighted towards sprint events. It means the cross-over from road to track and vice-versa is now much more limited. It also means that the likes of DOL need to reply on teammates to get funding.


  • #3
    Junior
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,238 ✭✭✭Junior


    Surely Scratch, Points and Devil take the hindmost would be sort of suited to a road rider ?


  • #4
    RobFowl
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 11,669 Mod ✭✭✭✭RobFowl


    Junior wrote: »
    Surely Scratch, Points and Devil take the hindmost would be sort of suited to a road rider ?

    To balance them with the kilo and flying lap does make it quite a niche event. Ed Clancy and Martyn Irvine do seem to able to mix the two quite well but it really needs to be the main focus.
    I like the event but to scrap the points, IP and madison while keeping all the sprint events does seem unbalanced.


  • #5
    morana
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,099 ✭✭✭morana


    There are plans to put together a development squad with an eye to rio 2016.


  • #6
    Beasty
    Administrators, Social & Fun Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 78,393 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭Beasty


    I am disappointed the number of mens events was reduced to 5, but given this was the only way to get gender equality it was a price that had to be paid

    I think we need to look at the Olympics now as more of an opportunity to showcase the sport - the changes to the programme and limitation on participants (now 1 per nation per event) means the sport needs to choose the events very carefully, and there was always going to be losers. It's going to be the World (and European) championships that the majority of top riders and real fans will probably end up focussing on (particularly as these events are yearly)

    In terms of the events that survived, the team ones allow more riders to take part, which must be a good thing. I guess the big question is why they have ended up with 2 sprint events, but the idea behind the omnium is it gives exposure to the endurance events, and I guess it pads out the overall programme, given it will take place over two (perhaps 3?) days


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