Mark Cavendish is seemingly assured of pursuing his Olympic medal dream in Rio and the Manxman’s selection for the team pursuit and omnium is set to be one of several controversial decisions that will be announced on Friday when the Great Britain squad for the Games is revealed.
Cavendish’s selection has been flagged up for several months but it will cause tensions because he does not have recent racing experience in the team pursuit, where he would be expected to fill the fifth available slot alongside Sir Bradley Wiggins, Owain Doull, and the London gold medallists Steven Burke and Ed Clancy. The team’s coach, Heiko Salzwedel, has made it clear he fears Cavendish’s lack of team-pursuit credentials could potentially be a weakness, and he has been brought in ahead of at least one stronger team pursuiter if not two.
A recent win in an omnium in Lithuania will have boosted Cavendish’s hopes of a medal in that event, primarily because he posted a strong time in the individual pursuit; he has clearly improved in his weakest suit. It remains to be seen whether he will ride the team pursuit, where the team can draft him in for one of the three rounds, because his time with them in the run-in will be restricted.
Cavendish has been selected by his trade team Team Dimension Data to ride the Tour de France and with GB travelling to Rio on 2 August, if he stays late in the Tour that will limit the time available to hone his team-pursuiting speed with the other riders. Of the two riders who have missed out, Jon Dibben has been chasing form after breaking an elbow, while Andy Tennant has won European and world titles in the discipline.
The final slot in the men’s sprint team has been a bone of contention with no obvious candidate emerging to succeed Sir Chris Hoy in the critical man-three position. Neither Callum Skinner nor Matt Crampton has ridden strongly enough to stake a definitive claim alongside Philip Hindes and Jason Kenny, so after the world track championships in March the team management began considering a relative outsider, the Bedfordshire sprinter Ryan Owens.
Owens is 20 and joined the British Cycling academy last September after winning the British university sprint, team sprint and kilometre championships in the spring. The Guardian understands that he may be allotted the team’s single ‘P’ accreditation, which means an athlete can be called in late in the day, effectively as a tactical substitute, leaving the door open for him potentially to come in at man three depending on form.
Owens’ nomination would raise eyebrows but would follow a pattern: at the past three Olympic Games the British selectors have brought in a relative unknown at a very late stage. Both Kenny and Hindes were “bolters” in 2008 and 2012 respectively. However, that would also reduce the men’s endurance team’s margin for error; in the event of an injury to Cavendish at the Tour de France, the only omnium candidates would be Wiggins or Clancy.
The British time trial championships on Thursday will be closely watched – with fingers crossed – by the selectors, as the Aviva Women’s Tour last week raised questions about the form of Emma Pooley, the Olympic time trial silver medallist in 2008, who is widely expected to be given the second slot in the road race team alongside the world road race champion, Lizzie Armitstead.
Pooley is considered to be the best British hope on the hilly time trial course in Rio, but she has barely road raced since retiring after the Commonwealth Games in 2014 to focus on triathlon. Her climbing form was expected to be an asset in August but she was off the pace in last week’s Aviva Women’s Tour, not making the select lead groups on the two toughest stages.The Guardian understands that Dani King – world team-pursuit gold medallist in 2012 – will be named as a reserve. That means the most probable candidate for the third road race place is Armitstead’s trade team-mate at Boels-Dolmans, Nikki Harris, who has raced strongly on the road this year after switching from riding mainly cyclo-cross; she finished alongside King in the lead group on the key stages at the Aviva Tour.
King’s omission in favour of Harris would be less surprising than rumours that Steve Cummings is to miss out on a place in the men’s road race. The Daily Mail has reported that Chris Froome’s team-mates will be Adam Yates, Ian Stannard, Geraint Thomas and Peter Kennaugh, who has not raced recently after breaking a collarbone in the Tour of California in May. Cummings, on the other hand, has landed three major wins this year in stages in Tirreno-Adriatico, the Tour of the Basque Country and the Critérium du Dauphiné.
