Joanna Rowsell says British women should have been in Worlds time trial

Interesting perspective on this from Lizzie Armitstead:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/cycling/11122441/Lizzie-Arm...

BTW the UCI has confirmed dates for 2015 Women's Tour - 17th to 21st June.

We did have Emma Pooley booked last year but she was at the crux of her thesis write-up and decided against it.
But this time around they had plenty of warning she wouldn't be there.

Melissa Lowther came 7th in the Junior ITT; perhaps she's one for the future. But BC will probably push her towards the track too.

We didn't have any representatives in last year's Elite Women ITT either.

Stupid stupid and stupid! How to demotivate in one simple action. To win medals you need all the usual things like talent etc. but you also need experience. The medals will dry up without bringing new riders in to replace others. So nobody will be entered in anything following that philosophy!

I think the Devil's Advocacy is reasonable, but there are still questions that could be better answered.
One name suggested is Lucy Coldwell, currently 29 which puts her at 31 for Rio in an endurance sport where the current British champion is 31, world men's champ Wiggins is 34, and with most of the others (as quite rightly noted) concentrated on track that may well be a good bet. She was on the long list for the Road Race and came 7th in the Nationals and 8th in the Commonwealth TT so is not obviously a make weight.

I would agree with best use of resources, and while I'm not an expert in UK ladies' TT I do think Jo Rowsell might have some idea about it as a former national champion, and that carries the sort of weight where BC would really be doing everyone (themselves included) a favour if they put out some numbers to back up what they say. Is Coldwell (or another alternative) demonstrably more expensive and/or less likely to get a top 3 than some of the less successful MTB XC folk who were sent to Norway? If that's the case and I can see some hard numbers I'll be happier, so let's have the hard numbers.

Wish 'Road CC ' would feature more woman apart from the usual few. They do stories about chaps from different teams and countries so why not women?

Ok then in for a penny.

If BC spend money sending people to just be in a race they don't have a chance in just for *hits and giggles then that money can't be spent on making sure that when a British rider is in a race they can win, that they get all the backup they need.

Going back to basic principles it would be the hard nosed question about efficient use of resources. It almost certainly would be along the lines of Brailsford's model of accumulating marginal gain. ie not "wasting" money on just turning up for the heck of it, is a marginal gain in the task of spending money in order to win medals.

A bit hard nosed but then again a hard nosed approach that has brought significant success.

I'm going to play devils advocate here... what is the point of sending someone to the worlds to get experience if there is no foreseeable chance of that rider ever reaching the level of challenging for a medal in that event?

You can realistically argue that Dowsett is a focused TT rider, has word class results in that discipline and with dedication to the event and a fair wind, could well get up there in the medals one day.

If anyone can show me a british women that can boast the same credentials, then I'll accept that it was a sexist decision.

I however would suggest that there is no one currently able to medal, or with the inclination or potential to medal in future years. So... why bother giving them experience? So a cold, hard business decision.

Our region puts money aside to fund a regional junior team to ride a number of national events. That money has not been spent for the past two years as there is realistically no one of the standard that can take anything away from the experience provided that is not already in a national race team.

Ironically that particular money has been poured into supporting women's racing.

"our priority is to win medals and so we need to focus our resource on that"

Yeah, but medals when? BC is known for taking a long-term strategic view (see the sub-pace performances at many track world cup events, for example, because they know the riders are at a low point in the cycle but that doesn't matter because they're flying when it matters at the olympics), yet in this case they didn't look past the end of their noses. Essentially, they didn't see a medal in it for them this time, but couldn't see any connection in performance/experience between this time and future events.

They put Dowsett in for experience for the future, but didn't do the same for the women riders.
Obviously sexual discrimination.

Its like saying to women its just not worth bothering with all the training....terrible decision.

Really how much does a plane ticket cost? British cycling sends competitors to track events all the time, how does the cost of the World TT championships, in which we have a great record differ? And we sent under 23's, including Melissa Lowther who finished 7th, she was there anyway and I'm sure would have relished the opportunity to ride twice. Doesn't make any sense to me. And yes definitely not right!

Using the same criteria, why was Dowsett selected? How was his chance of a medal judged?

So what BC are saying is, unless we think we can win, we'll not spend money, just in case we get our funding pulled due to a lack of success.

She's bang on. Not entering because not much chance of a medal. Do we pull the entire men's RR team on that basis?

Bad decision by BC.