London 2012: 349 Club goal to give Team GB disdainful entrance to group office bullion club

By Brendan Gallagher in Copenhagen 604PM GMT twenty-two March 2010

Repeat opening The 349 Club has been tasked with assisting Team GB recapture their bullion award impulse in the group office Photo AP

Welcome to the 349 Club, an ad hoc cabinet of coaches, conditioners, riders and array crunchers who right afar encounter over a pot of coffee once a fortnight or so to plan what they goal will be the decisive British opening in any competition at the 2012 Games.

The 349ers are dedicated to producing a Great Britain group office patrol that can broach a mind-boggling 3min 49sec float in lane cyclings blue riband event. Such a time would bar the stream universe jot down of 3min 53.314sec, set by Team GB at the Beijing Olympics and would, they hope, be great sufficient to win bullion at the 2012 Games. Only a patrol from Mars could go quicker than that surely?

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Or maybe not. As Usain Bolt has so vividly demonstrated, human jaunty opening mostly improves in a array of hulk leaps brazen rather than a light routine of chipping afar and thats just what is right afar function in the Team Pursuit. Great Britain blew the eventuality detached in Beijing, superb the universe jot down twice in less than twenty-four hours and are right afar vigilant on receiving it to a turn that nobody inside of cycling has formerly thought possible.

"Well thats the aim," says GB continuation manager Dan Hunt as he finalises Britains preparations for this weeks World Track Championships. "And honestly thats what will be necessary. The Aussies appear to have a golden epoch of youngsters entrance by who could be formidable, New Zealand further and the Danes will be strong.

"After the performances in Beijing the alternative big nations have left afar and are receiving a critical see at the event. The law is that notwithstanding the success in Beijing we are ripping this eventuality detached and going right behind to basis and asking the subject "How do we go even faster? To mount still would be to go retrograde really quickly.

"There is a clever thought that maybe you provide it some-more similar to a group scurry and get some-more speed merchants in to the line-up, as a result former kilometre riders similar to Jason Queally, who was additionally an superb group sprinter, entrance in to the equation.

"They can speak up gait at the front but you can never take the continuation component afar and to do that the pristine continuation riders will have to do even longer turns to give the speed merchants a draw for as prolonged as possible. That would shift the complete dynamic, the time of the changeovers and strategy of the race. There is a lot of room for creation and meditative outward the box.

"Its early days and it competence not compensate dividends true afar but that is the citation the eventuality seems to be heading. The 349 bar is all piece of that process. Before Beijing we had an inspirational DVD done for the lads lasting just 3 mins and 55 seconds that was the benchmark for Beijing. As it happened they romped home with time to spare."

This week the group office could be the celebration eventuality and even on the traditionally delayed Ballerup lane the universe jot down competence come underneath threat. Great Britain will be but Bradley Wiggins and Geraint Thomas, who will come behind in to the equation nearer the London Olympics, but even but the "engine room from Beijing they should be well in the brew with a new era of riders stepping up.

Ben Swift and Andy Tennant were both members of the GB patrol that accessible the second-fastest time ever at the World Cup last Nov and effectively take over from Wiggins and Thomas fulfilling the longer stints at the front.

At the front of the "train Ed Clancy will explosion off at No1, his well determined role, and Steven Burke, an particular bronze medallist in the office from Beijing, roving two. Queally is expected to be the fifth man haven supplement ready to deputize if anybody falls ill this week or suffers unduly in gift that mostly formula in a faster float than the last itself.

"Some people have been job us the Great Britain B that has stung a bit," says captain Clancy, the usually bullion medalist from Beijing in this weeks team.

"This is the really most appropriate patrol we can margin from those accessible and we have been going really easily in training, we have been posting numbers and time-trial rides right up there with what we did prior to Beijing.

"We are a immature patrol but we have a little sparkling immature bent and this is a really big event for them. We know the antithesis are removing tougher and you have to apply oneself the peculiarity of riders Australia are commencement to produce, but if we perform on the day we will be fast and there or thereabouts."