Majorca Helps British Cycling Hit Olympic Goldmine (rights women sports)
No commentsBy Roger Munns
The majority of Olympic athletes train their entire lives for a shot at competing in front of the world. Only the absolute best make it that far. Every little thing matters when you’re going for the gold: diet, training, mindset, and support.
In the 2008 Summer Olympics, the British Cycling Team was more successful than even they could have hoped. The team that once didn’t have enough money for proper uniforms took home an astonishing eight gold medals out of a total of 19 for Great Britain.
Under careful and constant leadership, the British Cycling Team worked very hard to shake off the team’s humble history and climb to the top of their game in Beijing. Following their promising performance in Athens in the 2004 Olympics, the team was dedicated to training hard, improving every aspect of their performance, and taking home a pot of gold.
Part of their training equation was superior leadership and teamwork. The entire British Cycling Team, from the helpers in the pit to the team’s performance director Dave Brailsford, worked tirelessly to hone the cyclists’ abilities. Through training and the heartening results of the World Cup, the British team pushed themselves to a new level of greatness.
One of the highlights of the team’s ascent was their performance in the 2007-2008 UCI Track Cycling World Cup Classics series. Over the course of the five rounds, the British team showed incredible skill. But even more than that, they showed admirable team cohesiveness.
In order to get where they were during the World Cup series, and where they are now after the Beijing Olympics, the British Cycling Team had to train like never before. Their routine consisted of up to seven hours on the road every day. The grueling schedule and merciless drive to succeed were somewhat tempered by the luxurious surroundings during part of their training.
The luxurious period of the team’s Olympics training was spent in Majorca; a Balearic Island known for its hospitality and near-perfect weather.
For the British Cycling Team, though, it meant long days of grueling training. The team had a favourite area of tough hills where they would ride until they simply couldn’t go any longer. This is a far cry from the vacations most people spend in Majorca. But if you have to push yourself to the edge of your physical endurance and strength, there’s no lovelier place to do it.
The British Cycling Team isn’t the only group of cyclists using Majorca as an idyllic backdrop to their training. Several other groups of amateur cyclists make their way to the island every winter and spring to train in the beautiful setting. They may not be headed to the Olympics right away, but among those amateur cyclists could be another great British Cycling Team in the making.
All of the elements present in the training of this record-breaking team came together to create something wonderful. Whether it was the brilliant leadership of Dave Brailsford, the tough but effective daily workouts or the overall positive chemistry of the team, one thing is certain. The British Cycling Team of the 2008 Summer Olympics will go down in the country’s history as national heroes, and enthuses Britain to the London 2012 Olympics.
Details about Majorca flights to Palma Airport are available through travel guide yourmajorca.net - and they have other Majorca information.
Companies who specialise in cheap holiday to Majorca late offers and Majorca villa holiday companies who do Majorca holiday villa packages are also featured.
AAS And Competitive Advantages In Sports
By Dane Fletcher
There are a set of ironies in place when it comes to the American mindset on steroids. They are, most simply put, an advantage designed to make the process more efficient and improve performance. Our lives are filled with things designed to make things more efficient. From email to cell phones, to just about anything in your house, we have become a society which benefits tremendously from the use of more time, which these things provide.
Likewise, our society has embraced the many things which improve our performance. We enjoy coffee in the morning because it delivers a boost of caffeine, which makes us more alert and energetic. We take aspirin daily to ensure our hearts perform better. We undergo surgeries when necessary to extend our lifetimes. We do whatever we can to get more pleasure out of life, and do it with greater abilities.
Yet, Americans get very upset when they learn of athletes who are using performance-enhancing drugs to excel on the field. They curse them as cheaters and brand then as losers. They are mocked for the remainder of their career, and the stigma never goes away.
Without the use of drugs in sports, the level of quality seen on the field would quickly plummet. Imagine your favorite baseball player hitting 45 fly-outs instead of home runs. Imagine the best football players only able to run a 4.8 instead of a 4.3 in the 40-yard dash. Imagine the quality of games declining when your favorite players no longer were able to do the things they can do today. Remember, the steroid-induced baseball derbies of the late 1990s and early 2000s will never be replicated due to strict drug testing in baseball. Do we want that in all sports?
Is it the moral conflict which bothers them? It shouldn’t be. Most people tell ten white lies a day at their jobs. From complimenting a co-worker with a terrible haircut to telling a spouse they don’t look fat, we have no problem changing the truth to fit our own personal set of needs. If you asked a hundred people who would tell a lie to win $1000, you’d have at least 99 “yes” responses. So the moral aspect of things shouldn’t come into play.
What is the source of this contraction? Perhaps it is jealousy. As youths, many of us watched professional sports and dreamed of performing at that level. At some point, those dreams were dashed by age, family, injury, or just plain “not being good enough” to advance to the next level in a particular sport. What is the solution? Think it through. Realize what it is about steroid use in sports that infuriates you.
Dane Fletcher is the most innovative and prominent Steroid guru in the world. To read more of his work on Steroids visit http://www.SteroidsToday.com.
Saturday, August 30th, 2008 at 11:25 pm and is filed under sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
