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Sir Bradley Wiggins with his fifth Olympic gold medal (copyright Britishcycling.org_.uk).jpgJames Cracknell: Giving Sir Bradley Wiggins an Olympic rowing place “a gamble worth taking”
Double Olympic rowing champion James Cracknell says he believes Sir Bradley Wiggins “is worth a gamble” for a place in the Team GB squad for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
Cracknell has been coaching Wiggins since the five-time cycling gold medallist and 2012 Tour de France winner switched sports earlier this year.
He said that Wiggins’ competitive debut this weekend at the British National Indoor Rowing Championships, which take place at Lea Valley VeloPark this weekend – the venue where he set the current UCI Hour Record two and a half years ago, gives him a chance to stake his claim.
“First and foremost, Brad isn’t going to be rowing on the water at the British indoor championships – he’ll be taking on a machine, and it’s an opportunity for him to put a score on the board which could mark him down as a contender,” Cracknell told The Mirror.
“He’s been very quick to pay respect to the sport, and he’s not larking around. He’s also got to be realistic and accept he’s a bloke of around 6ft 3in and 93kg taking on guys who are 6ft 6in, 110kg and all the power they can generate.
“It’s the equivalent of him riding a static Wattbike. It’s a useful measurement of his power, but the real test will be on the water.
“Can he put himself in the same ball-park as the guys at the bottom end of the national squad, and will the coach take a gamble on him for Tokyo?
“In my opinion, it’s a gamble worth taking.”
Besides his five gold medals, Wiggins, aged 37, has also secured one silver and two bronze medals during the past four Olympic Games, his total haul of eight being a record for any British athlete.
Cracknell said: “On his own, Brad has won more Olympic medals than any British athlete in history, and even if he doesn’t quite make the standard, there’s a huge amount of guys who can learn so much from him about what it takes to be a champion.
“By 2020, he will only be a bit older than Steve Redgrave when he won in Sydney, and he has a track record of achieving his target when he puts his mind to something.
“If I was running British Rowing, I’d be looking at the profile of the sport and thinking how much it could be lifted by having someone of Bradley Wiggins’ stature,” he continued.
“As a sport it needs funding, it needs publicity and it needs to extend its profile beyond once every four years in the headlines when we win Olympic medals.”
“He will need to pace himself, but we have seen in the past there is a natural aptitude among rowers who take to a bike, like Rebecca Romero [winner of a silver medal in the quadruple sculls at Athens in 2004 and gold in the individual pursuit in Beijing four years later], and there’s no reason why the reverse shouldn’t apply,” Cracknell added.
Last month another British Olympic gold medal-winning rower, Mark Hunter, said he believed Wiggins has what it takes to win a place in the squad for Tokyo, suggesting he could be best suited to a place in the men’s coxed eight, an event in which Team GB are the reigning Olympic champions.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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18 comments
And now, the evidence - 21st in BIRC blowing up in the last 500m pulling 1:41. Winner beat him by 32 seconds over 6 minutes. And he's never raced an actual boat. Good luck to him but unless he can get down to 72.5 kg and keep the upper body power this is a non-story.
I can't see any harm in supporting a brain injury charity.
Headway do some great work and I'm not disputing that (I have a friend who volunteers for them, who himself suffered a serious brain injury after swerving his car into a tree whilst trying not to run over a rabbit). However, they are tremendously in favour of compulsory helmet-wearing (well, for cyclists, anyway, not for climbing ladders or driving cars or anything else where there might be a risk of a brain injury), and I disagree with them on that. Hence my initial post upthread.
It will be fascinating to see. Like all elite sports, its the rare combination of factors that make the best. Wiggo certainly has the heart, lungs and high V02 max, together with the mental fortitude and ability to push to the max for a long period. In fact 2km will be over in a heartbeat vs the Hour record or the TdF! The question is how much of a difference the relative lack of bulk and leverage makes.
So, in my untrained view, he will be impressive, but possibly lack the physical edge to beat the top 1% of the top 1%, which Olympic contenders are.
I trust that Mr Cracknell will make sure that his entire rowing team are wearing helmets, being a Headway supporter and all...?
Headway supporter ?
Yes (edited: I mean Cracknell is a Headway supporter, not me!)
https://www.headway.org.uk/about-headway/headway-supporters/
"Headway supporters
We are privileged to have the help of a number of high-profile supporters who are keen to do all they can to help us raise awareness of brain injury.
James Cracknell, Vice President
On 20 July 2010, double Olympic gold medallist James Cracknell sustained a severe traumatic brain injury while cycling through Arizona.
He was attempting to cycle, run, row and swim from Los Angeles and New York in just 16 days when the wing mirror of a petrol tanker travelling at 65mph struck the back of James's head.
James was rushed to hospital, while Beverley, who was in Las Vegas at the time, received the dreaded phone call experienced by many families and loved one of those with brain injury.
Since that fateful day, James has gradually been rebuilding his life with incredible support from Beverley and their children. The couple have bravely shared their experiences of brain injury on numerous occasions in the national press in order to help others affected, while their book Touching Distance remains one of the most moving, open and revealing testimonies available on the subject of brain injury."
"I used to watch the university boat race and marvel at how poor some of the oarsmen seemed to be. They were mostly about 6 foot 6 man mountains though."
This, although some climb the ranks from schoolboy oarsmen, there are plenty who are selected on their size alone, then taught to row in a year or so.
Name one in the last five years.
It's not the most technical sport in the world, but there's only one rower I can think of who's gone from not rowing before, then going to senior world champs within a year.
I can't think of anyone in the BR who has done that, at least in living memory.
Well in my living memory a lad I went to school with rowed in the Isis / Goldie race and he was fundamentally shit at rowing but was a monster on the ergo. His name is Martin Brown, and google says he rowed in 1995, so a bit of a while ago. He was relatively small compared to some of his crew mates too. Obviously that isn't the same as having someone brand new to rowing, but his total lack of technique didn't hamper him too much.
I've rowed in scratch crews with world champions and the main difference between them and me was that they were about twice my size! The power they can put out is immense.
I don't agree that rowing is a particularly technical sport. I rowed as a teenager for about 5 years (starting in eights and ending up in coxless pairs and single sculls). I competed at the Nat Champs and my technique was excellent. Unfortunately I used to get beaten by the bigger guys, especially in eights where individual lack of technique can be covered up to a degree. I suppose I could have possibly starved myself and got down to lightweight although I am currently half a stone over that weight and have no upper body, so in practice you have to be pretty skinny to do that.
I used to watch the university boat race and marvel at how poor some of the oarsmen seemed to be. They were mostly about 6 foot 6 man mountains though.
I am amazed if Wiggins is now 93KG - ho does look pretty beefy, but I can't see how it is possible to go for 69KG to 93Kg by only adding muscle. It certainly makes his cycling weight look very unnatural. I knwoI am hardly an elite athlete but by body weight as a rower and a cyclist was very similar, albeit my shape changed a bit.
Helen Glover reached Olympic level in less than 4 years so what Wiggins is trying to do is possible, and he has proved that he has Olympic gold medal-standard physiology. Rowing is technically more complex than cycling as you have to understand about the catch and how to get a lock on the water, and the acceleration through the drive, but he will be getting the best coaching available.
He was something like 78 kg in 2008 and his tour weight target was around 72 kg. If he really does weigh 93 kg now that is impressive also, as a lot of that is presumably muscle that he has built in training.
I think he will have a massive job fighting 'bum shove' as his quads will have a tendency to overpower his back. However, if he can overcome this then I think he is in with a chance. Why not?
Unfortunately there is no Olympic event for sitting on an ergometer just as there is no event for the turbo trainer. I wonder what Sir Brad would have said to someone who'd never ridden a track bike but suggested they could break the hour record as their FTP on a turbo was pretty close to his. It's utter bollocks. Cracknell is talking shite and he knows it. Cycling is a much easier technical exercise within which to apply the power than rowing which is why Romero went from a boat to the bike (as did Cracknell). It won't happen. Let's move on.
http://road.cc/content/tech-news/176574-canyon-sram-zwift-recruit-new-team-rider
Of course not.
Nope, never.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2012/apr/29/jann-ardenborough-racing-car-games
Rowing isn't that technical.
Sir Brad has quite an advantage in that he's demostrated the mental strength to win, second he's fit and is able to sprint (2.000m is a sprint compared to head races). The problem is whether he's got the strength.
He's said it's worth a gamble, may bring extra publicity and revenue, and he's correct in saying the water will be where it matters...
Possible bias seeing he's his coach?
Definitely, he's totally guessing right now, power to weight is more important just as in cycling and he's going to need to really be on it technique wise and that is massively more relevant on the water than it is showing what watts you can sustain in an ERG 'race'.
Sure, some can be naturals, totally getting the whole rowing position, technique, rythym etc far quicker than others, but there's also the tactical aspect, when/how to change down after the start is just one small part (you'll see it after about 20 strokes).
It's a shame he's 6ft3, a little too tall to be a top lightweight skuller going by past best body types (usually 5ft 11-6ft), he can make the 72.5kg weight but the difficulty to compete with the best is the spread of that weight over a longer frame even with a low body fat%.
He has proven mental stamina and endurance but against guys that are also brought up to dip into the hurt locker, have many more years honing their technique I think it's a big ask. I certainly don't think it's worth risking him at all unless he can actually prove what he can do against top competitors on the water, ERG tests in themselves are just one measure, for something so technical as rowing there's so much more.