Quote:
Originally Posted by Craig
Yeah some of your best track (men) chances from the Isle of Mann, Welsh, Scottish and another one from where GIMH hails from (but is a Liverpool supporter). The other one is from London, but born in Belgium and has an Australian dad.
But I guess it the old story, now that she won she is British but when she is dire she is Welsh.
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Yeah, but England has produced many fine track and road cyclists in the past, it's just a cycle, (no pun intended) I think.
The extent to which the British winner, regional loser thing happens is not actually as common as you probably think- it's largely confined to the tabloid press. The BBC is certainly not in the habit of doing that- they said straight away how happy Wales would be that Cooke won. And the same was true for Cavendish's victories- the article usually began "Britain's Mark Cavendish won the stage... the Manxman, 21....". What Scots and Welsh people really don't like is people calling their athletes "English" which doesn't happen very often anymore. And the same thing happens and happened for English victories. the British media isn't dominated by English people, and English people aren't always going to claim Scots and Welsh athletes as their own, any more than the other constitutent countries will. It's bound to happen when you have a nation composed of several countries- I actually think it makes Britain stronger.