Showing posts with label Procycling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Procycling. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

American World Domination - Its a Mindset

Tejay with the Scriven family in the background
WORLD DOMINATION
This is an idea I've had for quite some time but never got around to writing about it completely.  However, with the accelerated rise of several young American cyclists on the world stage I thought I should get this out now with the hopes of starting some excitement for my vision - world domination by the USA.

I'm not talking about a James Bond villain or the Mike Myers version of the 007 nemesis in the form of Dr. Evil.  Rather I'm referring to actually producing an American winner of the Cycling World Championship Road Race.  Specifically I'm focusing on the Men's race because as I see it, the problem doesn't exist in the women's side of the event.

THE PARTICIPATION PROBLEM


One BILLION dollars!
What's the deal?  Well, looking over the history (modern history at least) of the World Road Race it's pretty easy to mention the only American winners of the event, Greg Lemond (83 & 89) and Lance Armstong (93).  Of course we all know about Lance's recent "troubles", but for the sake of this little post I don't even care what he was taking, injecting or if he was "glowing"... all I care about is whether he was participating.  My issue with the US team since Lance's victory is that they've sent a lackluster squad to the worlds to compete when on the sidelines have been some of the worlds best cyclists at the time.  Participation is the problem here.  I wrote previously in support of Taylor Phinney representing the USA at the Olympics and derided the other top Americans that had skipped the World Championships where participation and getting a top 15 would have produced two spots for an American in London rather than just one as we had for the 2012 Olympic Time Trial.  So this trend continues.  What I hope doesn't happen is that Taylor and the other youngsters decide to forgo the World's race once they hit their stride and make a mark on their career.