Not for the first time technology has defeated me and I am unable to upload the audio recording of the Press Conference that followed the London-Surrey Classic at the weekend. A Conference that featured the winner, Mark Cavendish, 2nd place Sacha Modolo, 3rd place Samuel Dumoulin and King of the Mountains winner Kristian House.
For those that are interested here is a transcript of events:
LOCOG – “Mark, congratulations, was it your intention to go out and treat this like any other race?”
CAVENDISH – “Yeah it was a race, we’ll treat it like a race, we wanted to win not necessarily with me, because we wanted a Great Britain jersey to be across the line first”.
LOCOG – “Excellent, and Samuel, how did you find the race?”
DUMOULIN – “A little dangerous in the start, on the surface, it was technical. With 9 laps I think it can not be as good for the sprinters but today it worked for them”.
LOCOG – “And Kristian, what did you think of Box Hill?”
HOUSE – “Yeah it was quite a good climb with quite a lot of people on the side of the road supporting all the riders, I think like Samuel said with 9 times it won’t be very good for the sprinters but I don’t think it will play a massive, I don’t think it will effect it massively”.
Qustions from the floor:
DAILY TELEGRAPH – “Mark, given the crowd numbers today and the excitement, can you even visualise what it might be like in a year’s time with maybe 5, 10 times that number on the road?”
CAVENDISH – “It will be pretty incredible, even today it was, it was really, really great, if it can emulate the 2007 Grand Depart at the Tour de France it’s going to be spectacular. Yeah the support at the start, at the finish and the whole way round the course was pretty nice. Obviously its restricted the amount of access for viewing so it’s not going to be like solid, solid, solid wall of people the whole way round which I think it would be if it was unrestricted access. I’m getting pretty excited about it, and it shows how many people are actually into cycling right now in Britain, and that’s just British people here today, it’s not everybody else coming to see the Olympics, so I think its going to be quite a sight”.
CYCLING WEEKLY – “Obviously we’re getting incredibly excited about next year but more pressing is perhaps the World Championships in Denmark. I guess today was a good run-out for you and the other guys that are probably going to be there. How key was it to be part of a winning team and to gel as a team because you don’t ride with these rider’s week-in, week-out?”
CAVENDISH – “I can tell you, all I know that this is the best Great Britain team, group of Great British riders that we’ve ever had to work together. We rode together technically for the first time ever, three of us were at the World Championships last year, a few of the guys were there the year before in the World Championships, together as a team that’s actually useful to win it, the first real time we’ve rode together as a big unit and it was like riding with my trade team, it was like riding with a team that’s been together for 2 or 3 years and it was pretty spectacular and everybody committed more than 100% and just gelled. They knew what they had to do and they did it and they did it with passion. I was incredibly proud to be part of that, it was a spectacular sight to sit behind them and see the guys working together as a unit the whole day, from home zero until the final”.
THE GUARDIAN – “In terms of how the race develops next year, what have we learned from today, the hardness of the course, that kind of thing, because obviously several of the riders have said that it’s going to be a lot harder, it will be a very different game, Box Hill 9 times to 2 times?”
CAVENDISH – “Of course it is. I said it before the race today you won’t get a feel of how the race wil go next year, not today. 2 times is 2 times, not just doing the hill 7 more times but the distance of doing the hill as well, you’ve got double the distance of the actual race and it’s going to play a big effect I think, today wasn’t really about getting a feel for next years racing, we can see next year its going to be like a classic type race, there’s going to be groups going, gropus coming back and eventually a selection of riders will get away, that’s just how it goes, we are going to be on our best form for it, I’ll have to be on my best form if I want to be leading, but I’m confident that I can prepare and be on my best form for it. There certainly won’t be a big bunch sprint but there will be a group there, with a solid group of team mates able to make a sprint so…”
JAPANESE MEDIA – “The Japanese team complained of you because two, one Japanese rider said he was crashed and brought down by you as the final, as 3km, how do you respond?”
CAVENDISH – “I can respond by saying that I was complaining about 2 Japanese riders after the finish, the thing is the Japanese team today are professional riders you know, its not like a team that’s not ridden with professional riders. I think, if you ask many people it takes a brave person to try and push me off my lead-out man, twice in the last 5k I had both times Japanese riders trying to push me off my lead-out man. If I stay solid they’re only going to bounce off me you know, and that’s what they did. So do they complain because I don’t want to leave my lead-out man, I don’t know, just er sort it out. There’s no-one else complained about me is there? No, just the two guys that crashed, who I was complaining about also”.
NORWEGIAN MEDIA – “There has been some discussions lately after the Rainbow Jersey was left out of the Vuelta, what do you think about this? Is it a disrespect of the jersey?”
CAVENDISH – “It’s up to the team what they do, it’s out of my control. I’m going to the Vuelta to try and win and prepare for the World Championships”
CYCLING WEEKLY – “This one for Kristian. How important was it today to get into the break? I guess with the Rapha team you had nothing to loose and if you can get out there for most of the day it’s a good day for your sponsors and yourself?”
HOUSE – “Yeah, all our sponsors are London based, and for this team to race in London it’s very important to our team, we kind of had a feel for what was going to happen today and it did happen, a bunch sprint. So really for someone like me the only opportunity I’ve got is to go up the road so that’s what we wanted to do, and try to get up the road for as long as possible, and the mountains jersey, the mountains prize was a bonus but it was a phenominal day out there and the support was amazing”.
THE WHEELER(?) – “A question for Mark, congratulations. Looking at next year, how does it feel to race with Team Sky on your shirt?”
CAVENDISH – “The Great Britain team is sponsored by Sky”
THE WHEELER(?) – “I know but could you get used to the name on your shirt?”
CAVENDISH – “I’m going to be riding with Great Britain in the World Championships so I’ll have Sky on my jersey, because Sky sponsors the Great British team”
THE WHEELER(?) – “But next year, can you say anything about your transfer process?”
CAVENDISH – “No”.
Great photos and report Neil, that press accreditation hasn’t been wasted! Looking forward to your reports on the Tour of Britain. The more I see of Cav, the more I like the guy. Not only the fastest sprinter on two wheels, also a superb, down to earth ‘no nonsense’ ambassador for our sport.