World Champs - Bayley v Bos

Billsworld

LOL....I was recently talked off the edge of the building and I am in transition therepy

WarrenG

Transistion from sane person to sprinter? That could take awhile and it's not always a good thing...

Billsworld

The power is starting to come back. Still off about 5%

WarrenG

5%? That can be there, or not on any given day. After not training so much because of the weather you just need a little neuromuscular coordination tune-up to get it all back. No worries.

Training scenarios aren't really ideal for producing your best numbers so just keep doing the training you know is right and when you do a taper the numbers will be their best.

IOW, if you rest up enough to do great sprint numbers on a training day you have probably rested more than you should have for the more important objective of optimizing your performance on race day. Hey, it would be fun to see some really high sprint numbers but when you're doing 6-10 sprints within 25-50 minutes (for the optimal training) you're going to see small improvements some weeks, but you're not going to see the best wattage peaks and speed maximums... until it really counts.

No medals are awarded for performances during training.

temper27

Thanks for the info, but I dont think BMX should belong in the Olympics anyway either. It just isnt an Olympic-type event, or it shouldnt be. The two time trial races in the veledrome are far more valuable Olympic events then BMX biking will be.

Jack-o

Hi Warren,

I think I know the answer to this one. (although it's only my opinion)

I don't know about other countries, but here in Australia we have the following situation.

1. Elite Aussie trackies are after any sponsorship dollars they can possibly get so they can continue to live as full-time athletes.

2. Sponsors are only interested in supporting athletes with a high profile in mainstream media.

3. Mainstream media reports on the following sports, AFL football, Rugby, cricket, swimming, golf, and.....Olympic and Commonwealth Games.

Track cycling gets totally ignored by the mainstream media except for 4-5 days every 2 years. Athletes looking to maximise their exposure to the general public through the mainstream media have only a small window of opportunity to do so.

The World Sprint championships may be of a higher calibre than the Comm Games, but it is far more important to Ryan Bayley (and the rest of the team) than the World Championships from a financial point of view.

Despite the fact that Australians won a couple of gold medals at the recent world championships, the mainstream media totally ignored the event. Ryan's choice was to focus on the Comm Games for this reason.

Jack-o

WarrenG

All of that is possible, but for the fast guys they will make most of their money at invitational meets like the Revolution series in UK and/or in keirin races, and I expect their income will be higher as World Champion than Commonwealth Games champion, yes?

Jack-o

You're probably right.

Cheers.

VeloFlash

But sponsorship money will always surpass starting money and prizes at events for an Australian rider with CG and Olympic success credentials.

The Oz public cannot identify to a world champion but can to CG and Olympics champion. It is media driven and the sponsorship bucks follow media recognition.

__________________
VF

"Remember, even if you win the rat race, you are still a rat"

WarrenG

I doubt that is the case in track cycling. Swimming, sure, but not track cycling. How much do riders make at events like Revolution and in Japan for their keirin racing?

How much money is Bayley getting in sponsorships? $100K/year? $50K/year? less? He can double that in a couple of months in Japan, and I doubt the Japanese people with money care much about the CG. They want to see rainbow stripes. Look at the history of the cash received by the guys who have raced there with rainbow stripes.

VeloFlash

Riders like Kelly, Dajka and Niewand have briefly appeared on the lucrative Japanese keirin circuit in between preparing for CG and Olympics. If the rewards, both financial and intrinsic, were superior to preparation and competing in Oz publicly recognisable international competition then they would have emphasised preparation on World Champs to reap greater rewards from a longer Japanese keirin season.

Actually, during the Mark French affair prior to the 2004 Athens Olympics Shane Kelly claimed he had lost a valuable sponsorship agreement worth in the hundreds of thousands by being wrongfully implicated. The potential is there to earn more from sponsorship on CG and Olympic success than contesting the kierin circuit. If contested it would be brief, as has occurred, and supplement sponsorship and scholarship income.

__________________
VF

"Remember, even if you win the rat race, you are still a rat"

Jack-o

That's right, Kelly lost a three year-$300,000 deal....... He no Likey Mr. French after that.

I can't imagine that a rider like Kelly would earn more than $100,000 a year racing kierins and collecting appearance money, so the sponsorship is very important, which goes back to my reasoning for saying the Comm Games has a higher priority for Aussie (and probably pommie) trackies than the worlds.

They probably would prefer to be World Champions, but they also need to think about their future perhaps ???

Jack-o

WarrenG

Some do, and have. I watched a Japanese Kierin race online recently where the winner collected near 600,000 USD for one race! Half the field went down in 2 or 3 mishaps. The other half was probably sharing in the winnings. :-)

Ricardo29

havent read this thread for a while, but u guys are spot on.

to an aussie, the CG is bigger than the worlds 'somewhere in europe in the wrong season that does not even get a mention here'. the media just thrash the CG, hardly a mention of worlds, so makes sense.
bayley was also defending CG champ, hence he badly wanted to defend.
he wasnt at worlds last year, and has often been out of form at them/tuning up etc, so they havent always been at the top of his list. is very hard to peak, party for a week, then back up 3 weeks later for the worlds. not denying that worlds are higher on the list, just not on his (this time around is all).

aussies will know hayley lewis...lisa currey kenney.....nothing much at all on a world stage, but MASSIVE due to comm games success. many many examples of this, across all sports.