The inner workings of British Cycling will be examined in a BBC documentary to be broadcast on Sunday, which promises to reveal how the organisation has delivered so many medals, and also question at what cost those medals have been won.
The documentary, entitled Britain’s Cycling Superheroes: The Price of Success?, will be broadcast on BBC Two on Sunday, November 19, and promises exclusive interviews with key figures in the British Cycling story, including former performance director Dave Brailsford and former technical director Shane Sutton.
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Both men, and other insiders at British Cycling will tell the story of the success that has seen British riders win 38 Olympic medals in the past three Olympic Games, and also respond to the critics who have questioned whether this success was worth it as the organisation faces questions over bullying and discrimination, and the inconclusive UKAD investigation into the Jiffy bag package.
As well as giving Brailsford and Sutton a chance to respond to criticism of the regime that they presided over at British Cycling, the programme will also hear from the likes of six-time Paralympic gold medallist Darren Kenny, who was one of the first to allege that Sutton had used discriminatory terms to refer to para-cyclists.
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There is also involvement from riders with experience of the inner workings of British Cycling, including Emma Pooley and David Millar, Steve Peters, the former psychiatrist at British Cycling, and journalists who have tracked rise of British Cycling through the last 15 years and covered the whirlwind of controversy that it has found itself in over the past 18 months.
Unsurprisingly this isn’t the first documentary to look at the remarkable story of British Cycling, with Sky airing a five-part documentary called British Cycling: Road to Glory and a one-off programme called Bradley Wiggins: Tour Of Duty in the wake of Wiggin’s Tour de France win and British Cycling’s success at the London Olympics in 2012.
