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Posted Sunday 8th January 2011 at 1.49pm
Cav and co (again)
Here is a great blog post from the BBC's Matt Slater about why the British cycling team should have been team of the year in the SPotY awards. Cricket is my favourite sport by some distance, certainly way ahead of cycling, so normally I would be backing Andrew Strauss' men, who can hardly be declared undeserving of their award after beating Australia and India so convincingly. But cycling's world road race was incredible. The stint that Wiggins put in towards the end, and then when it all looked like it was unravelling in a gut-wrenching final minute, only for Cavendish to fly through... that's the kind of skill and stamina that elevates your sport beyond just a game, and makes you an inspiration to others.
If you're in the UK you can watch the last couple of minutes of the race on the page I linked to above, but all you see is Cavendish coming from nowhere to win. You don't see the amazing work the rest of the team put in through the entire race to get him to that point. This video gives a bit of a better idea, but still you have to remember that Britain had been leading the peloton for the entire race, and Wiggins had done all the hard work single-handedly for so long, so when Australia took the front with four minutes to go it seemed Britain was paying for the fact that everyone knew their tactics; Britain had to stop any breaks, had to drive the peloton on, and everyone else could just ride on their backs like rats on an ox until the business end of the race. That Stannard and Thomas had the energy to find the front again, and Cavendish the ability to finish it off against the odds, only made the performance even more special.
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