ON YOUR BIKE!
GB stars to ride 13-year-old cycles as frames keep breaking
GREAT BRITAIN’S allconquering cyclists will head to next week’s Track World Championships with bikes up to 13 years old because the ones they used at the Rio Olympics have all broken.
As Sportsmail revealed before the 2016 Games, there was huge concern over the new Cervelo T5GB bikes because their speed was not allied with the strength to withstand the power being put through the pedals.
Now it has emerged that the team, who were the toast of British Olympic sport after six golds, three silvers and a bronze across the 10 events in the velodrome, almost ran out of their £10,000 bikes in Rio because the superlight carbon frames kept breaking.
Jason Kenny, who won three golds in the sprint events to join Sir Chris Hoy as Britain’s greatest Olympian, is said to have gone through up to five bikes. Ed Clancy, lead-off man in the team pursuit and with an immense amount of power off the line, experienced similar problems.
Sources say the British Cycling mechanics had to work at almost
BRITISH CYCLING is expected to face calls to open their financial records to forensic examination after allegations of impropriety spanning several years.
Cycling’s governing body may be asked to let external auditors study the books after claims that public money intended for the World Class Performance programme (WCPP) was misused.
Allegations were made to a panel investigating British Cycling in the wake of claims of discrimination originally reported by Sportsmail.
Concerns were raised that bikes and equipment bought with public money were sold privately and that staff employed by the WCPP were diverted to private projects.
Sportsmail understands the independent review panel, led by Annamarie Phelps, felt the claims were beyond its remit and have left it to UK Sport, who commissioned the report, to decide what happens next.
UK Sport allocated more than £60million in Lottery and Exchequer money to British Cycling between the 2008 Beijing Olympics and Rio 2016.