Heiko Salzwedel has taken complete responsibility for Great Britain’s defeat to arch-rival Australia in the men’s team pursuit at the UCI Track World Championships, admitting that he may have got his selection wrong, insisting that he based it on an ‘emotional’ decision.
The admission came after Great Britain came agonisingly close to winning the world title but saw Ed Clancy tighten up in the final lap. The home nation had been 0.4 of a second up but lost by over a second. They set their fastest time since the London 2012 Olympic Games and Salzwedel shielded his riders from any criticism.
“It was a fantastic ride and I can’t criticise anyone. It’s always hard when you lose and it’s that close and you’re leading with one lap to go. Saying that, this is high performance sport and life isn’t fair. It’s a disappointing result but the overall performance was excellent,” Salzwedel told Cyclingnews on Friday.
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“The only person you can blame here is myself because with Ed Clancy we took a risk.”
Clancy came into the World Championships without any competition in the last six months. Twelve weeks ago he was undergoing back surgery with his career on the line. Although he has made a brave recovery since then and pushed his way back into the team pursuit fold, Salzwedel confirmed that the rider had not trained for longer than 2,000 meters in training. On the eve of the Worlds, the team line-up was altered, with Clancy moved out of the qualifying team in order to test Steven Burke, who had a low-key championships by his standards.
“The original plan was to put him in the first round and let him go after 2km because he never trained for more than 2km before here,” Salzwedel told Cyclingnews.
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