vipergts831 wrote in post #17068797
For sure the grass roots was there. Charly Wegelius (in his book Domestique: The True Life Ups and Downs of a Tour Pro) said he ended up having a bad relationship with british cycling because they focused more on track than road when it first started up! I believe it was a great platform for british cycling. Before you needed to go over to france in order to have a chance at becoming pro. British cycling started to really take off in the late 90's (due to National Lottery funding) which has really changed that system up!
As much as people mock the National Lottery, their funding has certainly helped out. But government funding for sports in general is just ****ing dire. We would rather pump money into benefits (aka welfare over here), than take a few pennies out and throw it into sports...
Having the Olympics and currently the last few days of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow has really fueled the athletic and sporting ways in the UK