Britain's amazing success at the cycling events at the Olympics and just prior at the Tour de France is already drawing French suspicion of cheating.
The WSJ describes some of the technology that has helped (the British are not surprisingly not disclosing much)
“McLaren Applied Technologies adapted Formula One race car-telemetry system to cycling for the British team—which relays data about technique, positioning and speed to the side of the track in real time—and BAE Systems furnished them with laser-timing technology, which is derived from a British battlefield identification system.
The data derived from these devices allows coaches to predict results with startling accuracy, and helps them make ruthless selection decisions. In July, the British team announced that Chris Hoy, the superstar of track cycling, wouldn't defend his Olympic individual sprint title because practice sessions indicated teammate Jason Kenny was in better form for the event.
Kenny duly won the opening round in an Olympic record time of 9.713 seconds. He won the gold medal in the event Monday.”
David Terrar writes about Dave Brailsford (in center in photo below) who as Performance Director has revolutionized British Cycling
“..if you broke down everything that could impact on a cycling performance, absolutely everything you could think of, and then you improved every little thing by 1%, when you clump it all together you get quite a significant increase in performance, so we set about looking at everything we could. Some things are fundamental like fitness, nutrition, biomechanics etc, but there are other things which might seem right on the periphery, but very very important, so posture when you sleep, having the right pillow, having the same pillow so you don't sleep on different pillows all the time when you move from hotel to hotel in training, hygiene is extremely important, how do you really know how to clean your hands. When you wash your hands, when you ask people to wash their hands, if you put dye on their hands there are always bits between their hands or at the base of their thumb which people don't wash, if you do all those things you are going to get ill a little bit less - they're little things but if you clump them all together you improve."
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