British cycling chief defends abysmal world championship medal haul

BySportsbeat

Updated 23/02/2015 at 17:59 GMT

Shane Sutton has defended British Cycling's performance at the World Track Championships in Paris, despite winning no gold medals for the first time in fourteen years.

Shane Sutton

Image credit: Eurosport

The British team claimed three silver medals from Laura Trott in the omnium and the men's and women’s team pursuits, leaving many questions over future success in Rio 2016.

While the Brits took seven of ten Olympic track cycling titles in Beijing and then again in London the retirements of Sir Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton have hampered the squad's medal hauls in recent years.

And Sutton believes that expectations have changed in light of the high-profile departures.

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"As a team, if we can go to Rio and bring five medals away in the track programme, we'd be over the moon," Sutton said.

"I've always said we've had a glorious era. We will get to Rio and we'll be the best that we can be. Whatever these athletes have got, we'll get it out of them.

"There are certain riders that probably just need to look at their hunger a little bit. If anything's going to make them hungry, it's the way they've performed here in Paris."

And it's not just in competition that Britain have suffered according to Sutton who has seen the intensity of training reduced with the departure of the team’s stalwarts.

"Every day he was coming in and he was competing against Hoy and they were beating each other up on a daily basis," he added.

"He doesn’t have that any more. You've got to go out there and seek that competition. He probably needed that stimulation.

"Personally I believe that Jason needs to race more."

Cycling