Olympics: Brailsford Calls for Cycling in the Curriculum

The mastermind behind the Great Britain team's gold rush in track cycling, Dave Brailsford, yesterday called for the government to get on its bike by making cycling an obligatory part of the national curriculum and investing in facilities for families and grass-roots racers.

"There are a couple of key things," said Brailsford when asked for his wishlist when his team returns to England with eight or nine gold medals in their kitbags. "I don't see why cycling is not on the school curriculum. If you have swimming on the core school curriculum why not cycling?

"How many of us as parents would let our kids ride on the public roads in Britain? Children need safety and skills, and if cycling was on the curriculum as a key life skill so that every kid in Britain rides a bike, that would be a massive boost to the sport of cycling."

"That moment when a parent first pushes their kid off on their bike without stabilisers is a memorable one and we've all done it. It's an accessible sport and we've all done it. You can do it with the family, it doesn't cost that much to do. It's straightforward, ride a bike to burn more calories and eat a little bit less and you'll solve child obesity issues but you have to find the right facility and make it fun for kids."

The success of Britain's cyclists this week can be traced back to the decision to build a covered velodrome in Manchester during the abortive bid for the 2000 Olympic Games, and yesterday the cycling Performance Director said that less sophisticated cycling facilities were now key if the nation was to get on two wheels.

"Facilities are something that at an elite level we don't have a problem with, they're not a limiting factor, but they are needed for family cycling, kids going out with their parents, closed road circuits for grass roots racing." Earlier this week, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, cut the start tape at one such off-road racing venue, a circuit in East London, while another will be formally opened in Solihull on Monday.

Brailsford's cyclists had won eight gold medals by yesterday, and there was a further gold chance early this morning with Shanaze Reade, the BMX star. Reade has benefited from the construction of a temporary training track in Manchester to enable her to prepare. It cost only £30,000 due to inventive sponsorship and is one of only two Olympic-scale circuits in Europe. Yesterday the cycling head appealed for an extension of the temporary planning permission granted to enable its construction.

"I have only one request in terms of a legacy from all this: that they keep that BMX track. I only got planning until August 29, and I'm supposed to knock it down and pay for the dirt to be carried away. I can't do that. So Sir Howard Bernstein, the chief exec of Manchester needs to keep it for us. That's Shanaze's track. All the local kids can put down their knives and guns in that corner of Manchester and come and ride their bikes. Maybe if we did a bit more of that they wouldn't go back to their guns and knives."