David Brailsford, the mastermind of Great Britain's cycling success in Beijing, takes great satisfaction in a £5 million increase in the cycling team's budget for 2012 in addition to having four Beijing gold medallists vie for BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
" I'm paid to win medals and as a team we set out to win medals. We did exactly that and so the rewards should follow," said Brailsford to the Telegraph. "I have absolutely no guilt."
Much of the extra money will be spent on technological advancements, a necessity brought home to Brailsford during a visit to the McLaren F1 headquarters last week.
"If you look at the car they were running in 2000, it looks so outdated now but at the time they thought it was the best car that could ever be built," said Brailsford. "It's the same for us. In four years' time we'll look back to now and think, 'Blimey, we were in the dark ages'."
Chris Hoy, Nicole Cooke, Rebecca Romero and Bradley Wiggins, winners of seven gold medals at the Beijing Olympics, have all been short listed for BBC Sports Personality of the Year and will try to break a 43 year drought for cyclists. Tom Simpson was the last cyclist to win the prestigious award, back in 1965. The cyclists will face stiff competition from six other athletes, most notably Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton.
