oh well. at least us aussies still have cricket...

LETS CRUSH EVERYONE!!!!!

Oh yeah because being good as something is so un british. Rubbish. Long my our reign continue. (Though can we have Madison Champion too).

As well as beating other nations Britain is raising the international standard of track cycling by its world record times - kilo , pursuit, team pursuit, team sprint as well as by the average calibre of its riders rising.

Ahhh, but the question is, are all of these track medals worth one of Cav's victories in a GT sprint?

"oh well. at least us aussies still have cricket..."

...roll on next year, and Australia coming here without Warne, Gilchrist and McGrath :-)

As said here already, one of Cav's GT stage wins are worth 10 track medals.

My first trip to the velodrome will also be my last to watch team GB.

@ iainf72 & spanielsson

You're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong.

Just because YOU don't value track cycling doesn't mean the rest of Britain shares your view.

My God as soon as we get good at something we get bored, talk about a nation of "the glass is half empty"

You don't see the Americans or Australians taking their foot off the pedal when they are winning.

Lets enjoy it while it lasts eh! Hurrah for the Brits.

This is surely good for cycling in general, if these guys are respected as athletes then hopefully a little of that may trickle down to the road users and we won't hassled on tour club rides as much.

My only hope is that Sky doesn't destroy cycling like it did with football

@symo

But in the wider cycling world, road victories are worth more than track victories. You may not like it but that's the way it is.

There is also the threat of people starting to think bicycles belong on a track not the road.

The Brits do amazingly well yes. And well done all involved. But it's a minority sport within a minority sport. If DaveB can work his magic on the road than I'll be impressed.

what a load of tosh. The writer of this report thinks that doing well at something is boring. By the sounds of it he was the only one in the velodrom gutted at the success. I for one think it's great and can only imagine this being good for competition and cycling.

To quote a line' because I'm dumb, or maybe just happy'. It seems like Daniel is the former, but not the latter. The article is a pretty good ( or sad) example of hack journalism just to print off for the sake of it. Anyone with half a brain knows that the history of all sport is liitered with periods of dominatiion either by individuals or teams, and this is just one of those now. The competiton to then topple the champions becomes all the more intense and greater as others in the sport try to up their game ( or simply leave it if they can't cope). Do boxers ever get tired of winning , no they don't and the public never tires of watching them win because their greatness is built up and the task of toppling them becomes an ever graater challenge. GB's track success is nothing more than a moment in history, and so far only over a few years, and it is now up to other nations to respond by funding their own track programme ( and don't anyone say it cannot be done lest ye forget that 10-15 years ago the Brits were little more than a sideline in track racing). I used to hate Bjorn Borg winning Wimbledon, but the near misses ( eg Ross Tanner) just added to the desire to see him beat, and it never turned me off watching. When McEnro beat him, the moment was that much sweeter. A true sportsperson would recognise and appreciate the sublime perfection of any winning run as well as the striving to end it. Salzwedel is one of those people - maybe Daniel isn't though!

Reading the title to this piece I thought I was on a anti-bicycle forum.

I also thought the writer has a great future writing for The Sun.

I think this is incredibly pertinent. It's essential for British cycling to create a legacy and a brand of sport that essentially becomes able to sustain itself. The lottery funding, which is undeniably the single biggest factor in our 'domination' of the sport can not, and should not, last forever. So, a packed Velodrome and modest media interest (post Olympic euphoria) does not make a national institution. The problem remains that a wider sporting audience in the UK will crave all the things that make football, rugby, cricket, horse racing and, to an extent (given recent events) F1 genuinely national sports. Punters crave passion, stories, risk, sacrifice... but most of all they want success against the odds. Brits love being underdogs, and we're not happy unless we can wallow in mediocrity, but constantly live in hope. British track cycling has some great stories, amazing sacrifice and undoubted brilliance to offer - but the certainty of success only means satisfaction with victory, and disappointment otherwise. There is no rush, no surprise and no ecstasy. The author confronts an uncomfortable but very real truth - that this success is NOT self-sustainable without a significant effort to reconnect the sport with a mass audience, not just cycling junkies like us.

iainf72

I suppose you missed Nicole Cooke winning Olympic gold and the worlds on the road? Or does it not count, being won by a woman and all?

Jeez...can people not just enjoy and celebrate the fact that we are dominant in a sport for once?

I find road racing boring...but still revel in Cav and Cook's acheivements. Hell....I'm even chuffed for the Athertons in the downhill MTB, Reade's BMX near-domination and even Kileen's criminally ignored supercharge from last to 7th in the Olympic MTB XC.

Just enjoy what we've acheived and quit trying to tear it apart limb from limb!

For the record, I think if you get past the deliberately provocative and slightly tongue-in-cheek headline, you'll realize that I'm not trying to rain on the British parade. On the contrary, the two conclusions I reached on Saturday were that the British will soon have not so much spurred as humiliated the other nations out of their apathy and into action, and, two, most people present in Manchester agreed that, no, their brilliance on Saturday wasn't in any way boring. Track racing fans from France, Italy, Australia, Germany and so on may and probably do think differently, but, until their riders shape up, the Brits are free to gloat as much as they like.

At least I provoked some debate....

Daniel Friebe

Ok,Friebe. I know that you have written this article just to get a response- you are after all a journalist paid to get debate and response amongst his readership, but the assertion that the UK team is boring simply because the greater dedication, preparation, technique, drill, determination and practice has given the team world domination is foolish.

How can a world shattering display of brilliance be boring ? Maybe you would prefer to return to the days of plucky Brits, glorious failures, underinvestment and mediocrity. Never forget that this is re-setting the bar for the rest of the world. Such trail blazing is not boring, but inspirational, aspirational, and to a nation too familiar with glorious defeat and sporting failure, a beacon of hope and enlightenment.

Stop whinging Friebe, and start appreciating what you are witnessing- a sea change in delivery on the track which will change the way things are done for ever.Try to remember that you were there to see it happening. It is history in the making, and you are bored. Poor you.

In Daniel's defence, I can't see a point anywhere in his story - apart from the deliberately provocative headline - where he asserts that the British track team is boring. In fact, reading through what he says he comes to the conclusion that far from being boring, Team GB have raised the bar for track cycling as a whole and that that is only going to benefit track racing and perhaps other parts of cycling.

Like most British fans, I've reveled in the successes we've had on both track and road over the past months, and the increased exposure that has brought the sport in this country - almost of which has been positive, which is a huge change for cycling. But as a fan of the sport as a whole I've wondered what has happened to the rest of the world. Back in Beijing, Bradley Wiggins was bemused by the fact that most of his rivals for the pursuit gold had gone backwards rather than stepped up their game and weren't pushing him in the way he was expecting them to. Bradley was totally prepared, but too many of his rivals didn't seem to be at all, but this is going to have to change if the rest of the world is going to challenge Team GB in future.

Some nations are already set on taking up this challenge, and when they do track cycling will surely be pushed onto another level again. We may well see British riders winning a lot of titles - and let's hope from a GB point of view they do - but they are going to be pushed harder and harder to do so. With more competition of this type track cycling across the world should enter a golden age - noticed beyond the niche media, covered widely on TV and more competitive and exciting than ever. If Dave B and his team can conjure the same effects on the road, cycling will benefit even more.

Boring? Of course not, but we spend more money on our track cyclists than any other nation. Therefore we win more. It really is that simple.

No we have reached this level of dominance can we see some of that money diverted to other disciplines? Sure Nicole won, but then she is the best in the world regardless of National Lottery cash. The focus on track cycling does little to help gradd roots cycling in this country the vast majority of the population can't make regular trips to a Velodrome. How many towns and cities in this country have a velodrome? Does anybody think that these victories will see dozens of new velodromes built? Better we promote road cycling, cross country and now of course BMX which are more accessible to most people.

I know I'll get flamed for this, but I'd like to see the Olympic cycling events more accurately represent real world cycling. In which case we would probably see fewer track events. However from the point of view of organisation the track will retain the lion's share of events. It's a single locations, easy for organisation, television and of course easy to sell tickets.