Over the last few months I've had reason to answer the question, in a couple of different contexts, "How important is winning?".

It's a very interesting question indeed.

Ultimately, we race to win. In sprint, it's not about finishing the race, unlike most of the people who race endurance events.  Just to finish the Warny for example, is a win.  Second place in a match sprint is not a win.  Finishing a flying 200 is not a win. It sucks to lose a sprint and still get a medal.  In some ways bronze is better than silver, emotionally.  You won bronze, you lost to get silver.

How important is it?  It's very context-sensitive.  If you're a recreational sprinter racing the Summer Sprint Series, it's important to be competitive and have fun, that's why we grade it and it's a round robin format.  For development purposes, this is an ideal format, plenty of racing, plenty of chances to win, and try things and to try things that don't necessarily work the way you expect them.

If you're a coach in a government funded elite squad, winning is all-important.  Head sprint coaches at the Olympic games for Australia, Great Britain, Germany, France etc are there to win.  That's their job. It's absolutely vital that they win. They can't all win, and those that don't can get the chop by their organisations if they don't.  It's very intense and the stakes are high. It's only a bike race, but it's not!  Millions of dollars of goverment and private funding, years of dedication and sacrifice from the athletes and the coaches, there's a lot at stake. When it goes badly at that level, it's brutal. 

Compare this to Cool Runnings.  We've all seen it, it's a classic and one of the best sporting movies ever made.  Those guys won, not the race, but a battle against almost overwhelming odds to get to the start line.  If you're not at the top level, getting to the top level is a win.

Think about Lori-Ann Muenzer in our context, or Sir Chris Hoy, who was a pioneer of what is now one of, if not the, best sprint programmes in the world.  Hoy's story really is amazing.  His autobiography is a must read for anyone in sprint cycling.

From a development perspective, working with a development group like I do with the Vic sprint group (15 to 18 year olds, mostly) and some of the aboc guys, winning bike races isn't as critically important in the short term.  It'a a long term goal - we ARE training the kids to win races and it's important that they do, but it is at least as important that they develop the strength, power, speed, skill and emotional maturity to cope with the pressure to win that they will face if they make it into an elite squad.

These attributes can take time. A junior athlete with potential may not be winning much at first, it may take years of hard work for them to progress to the level where they are winning races and if winning is everything, these guys drop out.  We need them (and the seniors!) to concentrate on improvement and processes.  You'll hear a lot of "focus on the process". This means focussing on what you're doing, whatever it is, and letting the results take care of themselves.  If you're focussing on a solid start out of a gate, arms straight, head up etc and not on "I must win this race", you'll usually do a better start, and are more likely to win, or at least, give yourself the best chance you have to win. The athletes need to protect themselves from this pressure (pity the coaches!) and have sports psychs to help them with it. In order to win, they need to forget about winning.  Just like tennis in a lot of ways.  There are some very good books on tennis winning, I can recommend The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey.  Get it, read it. It's good.

Back on topic, winning is, ultimately, what it's all about for us, but we must approach that with a long term plan and process and with athletes fully aware that while we're preparing them to win, we want to see focus, dedication and improvement.  Tick those boxes and the wins will come.

http://youtu.be/gnq_d_FWhNE

I've been dropped in the deep end on a couple of occasions now with teams and travel and working with athletes I'm not familiar with. Here's some notes on what you need to work out with the athlete before race day :

When working with a new rider on tour, the following need to be discussed between coach(es) and the rider :

• "What do you need on race day to perform at your best?"
• Pre race briefings – what do you need? Focus/humour/leave me alone?
• "Debrief after races? If good result? If bad? When/how?"
• "Food/drink/suppliments"? What/When/How/Why? (legal?!)
• Warmup and cool down support?
• Logistics?
• Any special needs?
• Equipment, any quirks? Power meters? Special gears? Tyres? Pressures? Can do own gear changes etc? Spares?
• Push starts? Ok with pushing on body? Lifting on start lines? Ok with hand on top tube? Check with parents as well if a junior?
• After racing – pack up protocol, a rush? Talk with other competitors? Allowed time for socialising?
• Who packs up equipment? Any special requirements?
• Travel – any after effects, and travel medication?
• Medication/illness – anything?

What not to do?

Do NOT challenge an athlete's training or race choices.  You're there to get the best out of them, not to change them. If they're working with another coach, it is NOT your role to change what they do on race day.

There's more, but these are some key things to start with.

http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/47/11/663.full

http://youtu.be/JMuD4Z-Oxys

And

https://soundcloud.com/bmjpodcasts/high-fat-for-health?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_campaign=wtshare&utm_medium=Facebook&utm_content=https%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fbmjpodcasts%2Fhigh-fat-for-health

Many of you may be aware, a prominent and very visable Melbourne bike shop got in trouble last week for posting online some topless photos from an event they had at their shop.  A lot of fuss has been made about it, I think justifiable.  What this shop did was pretty damn stupid at best, but to make it worse, they then posted online a pathetic justification of it. It blew up all over Melbourne, as well it may have been expected to.  It was a wrong thing for them to have done, and their "management" of the issue just made it worse.  If they'd said "sorry, we did a dumb thing and have learned not to do it again" and left it at that, all would probably have been forgiven by most of us.

Given the unrepentent behaviour of the shop owner after this all blew up, a complaint was raised to the shop's major supplier, and they, to their credit, did the right thing.  The suppliers brand will survive untarnished, but the shop? The guy who runs it has shown his true colours.  There are many, many bike shops in Melboune that respect their customers and female cyclists and who stock all the same stuff as this mob.  You have choices with regards to who you take your business to.  Please choose wisely.

Now we can all get back to training and racing our bikes!

Here's the top 16 mens F200's from Mexico overnight, compared to Manchester a month ago. Interestingly the standard deviation is the same, so it's consistent.  Altitude makes a BIG difference.

At Mexico, it was around 24 degrees C, 15% humidity and 900hPa. I don't have the data for Manchester, but Manchester is at sea level (so around 1024hPa on average), Mexico is around 1900m above sea level.  If you apply the AIS's environmental correction tool, the fastest time at Mexico ends up at ~9.7s, which is roughly the fastest at Manchester.