Britain's Cycling Team Faces Crisis Over Public Road Access
UK Sport warned that the British cycling team will find it hard to repeat their success if the authorities continue to hamper racing on public roads
Attempts to build on the success of the British cycling team could be at risk unless the growing trend for police and local authorities to hamper racing on public roads is curbed, UK Sport has warned . UK Sport's director of performance, Peter Keen, said that the debate that had been "rumbling on" in the sport about the practicalities of racing on highways was reaching crisis point.
"It's getting harder and harder [to stage road races]. The sport faces a real crisis. Can it continue to race in a traditional sense in a way that has been at the core of the sport?" said Keen, a former performance director at British Cycling and architect of the "no compromise" policy that helped transform its fortunes.
British Cycling, which has been lobbying government and the police on the matter, plans to speak out on it next week. Increasingly, police are asking that organisers pay for roads to be closed if they want to race on public highways.
The impact of the Team Sky professional outfit, launched with the aim of winning the Tour de France, on the next generation of riders could also be diluted, Keen warned.
Britain won 14 medals and eight Olympics titles in Beijing, both on the roads and in the velodrome. Team director Dave Brailsford is now targeting a Tour de France victory within five years.
Last month, the first round of British Cycling's Premier Calendar road race series, the Bikeline 2-day, was canceled by police halfway through. Keen added: "Part of the reason the new pro team is so appealing is that it's what rank and file members dream of. They love the Olympics but the hardcore want to win the Tour de France.
''It's in everybody's blood," said Keen. "So, to be aspiring to do that at one end and find your domestic programme is being cancelled, literally stopped mid-race, is a big challenge for them.
"When they go and race in Belgium or France or Holland, the world happily stops for them to race, opens a deck chair and gets out a bottle of wine. Whereas here, in some parts of the land, they are fighting for road space with people who believe they shouldn't be there. That's not just about legislation, it's about mindset."
The problem was made worse because there are only two international standard velodromes in the country, he added. Such is the level of concern that British Cycling, feted as a model for other sports to follow in the wake of its spectacular medal haul at the Beijing Olympics, has downgraded its self-assessment of its "systems" from green to amber under the traffic light system employed by UK Sport.
In its latest quarterly update on the progress of the 27 Olympic and 19 Paralympic sports it is responsible for funding with £304m of public and lottery money, UK Sport also said it was important that plans for a new professional cycling team did not distract from Olympic goals.
This month, a new four-year funding cycle for Olympic sport began. Decisions on how much to allocate each sport were overshadowed by arguments about the impact of a £50m funding gap after private investment failed to emerge.
But John Steele, the UK Sport chief executive, said that it was time to draw a line under the debate and concentrate on the opportunities provided by the record level of investment that was in place.
"It's getting harder and harder [to stage road races]. The sport faces a real crisis. Can it continue to race in a traditional sense in a way that has been at the core of the sport?" said Keen, a former performance director at British Cycling and architect of the "no compromise" policy that helped transform its fortunes.
British Cycling, which has been lobbying government and the police on the matter, plans to speak out on it next week. Increasingly, police are asking that organisers pay for roads to be closed if they want to race on public highways.
The impact of the Team Sky professional outfit, launched with the aim of winning the Tour de France, on the next generation of riders could also be diluted, Keen warned.
Britain won 14 medals and eight Olympics titles in Beijing, both on the roads and in the velodrome. Team director Dave Brailsford is now targeting a Tour de France victory within five years.
Last month, the first round of British Cycling's Premier Calendar road race series, the Bikeline 2-day, was canceled by police halfway through. Keen added: "Part of the reason the new pro team is so appealing is that it's what rank and file members dream of. They love the Olympics but the hardcore want to win the Tour de France.
''It's in everybody's blood," said Keen. "So, to be aspiring to do that at one end and find your domestic programme is being cancelled, literally stopped mid-race, is a big challenge for them.
"When they go and race in Belgium or France or Holland, the world happily stops for them to race, opens a deck chair and gets out a bottle of wine. Whereas here, in some parts of the land, they are fighting for road space with people who believe they shouldn't be there. That's not just about legislation, it's about mindset."
The problem was made worse because there are only two international standard velodromes in the country, he added. Such is the level of concern that British Cycling, feted as a model for other sports to follow in the wake of its spectacular medal haul at the Beijing Olympics, has downgraded its self-assessment of its "systems" from green to amber under the traffic light system employed by UK Sport.
In its latest quarterly update on the progress of the 27 Olympic and 19 Paralympic sports it is responsible for funding with £304m of public and lottery money, UK Sport also said it was important that plans for a new professional cycling team did not distract from Olympic goals.
This month, a new four-year funding cycle for Olympic sport began. Decisions on how much to allocate each sport were overshadowed by arguments about the impact of a £50m funding gap after private investment failed to emerge.
But John Steele, the UK Sport chief executive, said that it was time to draw a line under the debate and concentrate on the opportunities provided by the record level of investment that was in place.
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