After a rigorous six-month selection process aimed at creating a gold medal winning team, two Rapha Condor Sharp riders, Ed Clancy and Andy Tennant, have been selected for the GB cycling team at the London Olympic Games.
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The two riders will form part of the five-man team pursuit squad and will be aiming to repeat their victory over their main rivals for the Olympic title, Australia, at the World Championships in Melbourne this March.
Many consider Clancy, a gold medallist from Bejing, the mainstay of the team and his selection came as confirmation to him that he has done everything correctly throughout his training.
“Without sounding egotistical I never really feared for my place, but at the same time you cannot take these things for granted. As athletes we aren’t involved in the selection process at all, we don’t know what goes on behind the scenes.”
“The good news on my part is that all the hard work I have been doing, particularly through the Tour Series, where Andy and I were working very hard, has gone really well and that will start to pay dividends in three or four weeks.”
Indeed Clancy had shown good form at the Halfords Tour Series, winning the round in Peterborough, before retiring from the series to focus on training for the Olympics.
While Clancy may already be preparing for his second Olympic games, for Andy Tennant, his selection marked the first time he will attend the Olympics, and he was rightly very excited by the prospect.
“I am really chuffed to be named in the squad. As spaces for athletes are limited for the Games, there was some debate as to whether we would take four or five guys for the team pursuit.”
“In the end the selection was tight. I was dropped from the London World Cup team as I wasn’t quite going well enough, so I really had to fight for my place. I had to make sure I was good enough so that they didn’t just use a road guy and make him double up on the track for example. For a while it was touch and go for me and I chased hard to be a part of this team.”
“It makes my selection a big achievement, but what makes it extra special will be doing my first Olympic games on home turf in London. That is something I know I’ll never get to do again.”
Clancy and Tennant will now be focused on continuing their final build up for the games with the rest of the squad for the Games, which are now only six weeks away.
