Cycling on a roll - competitive advantage in action

Much has been written about the factors behind the success of the GB cycling team in the Beijing Olympics. Some commentators are drawing parallels with the World Cup winning team in the Rugby World Cup of 2003 and for students of economics, there are some useful insights into what determines competitive advantage in markets.

GB cycling Performance Director Dave Brailsford is now being lauded in much the same way as Sir Clive Woodward was when the rugby world cup came home five years ago. Woodward in his triumphant book “Winning” (now being remaindered by Amazon for £6.99!) made much of the attention to detail that characterised the preparation of his squad before they left for Australia. Indeed Woodward made much of what he termed the “critical non-essentials” which he believed gave his squad a psychological, physiological and tactical edge.

The dramatic gold rush earned by the cycling team has spawned a fresh idea ” the aggregation of marginal gains” - a phrase Brailsford uses to describe the smallest improvements in many different aspects of the track cycling team’s final preparations for Beijing. Microeconomists will be familiar with the concept of the margin - we use it much of the time when discussing profit-maximisation strategies of businesses and in some of the theories of consumer demand - i.e. marginal utility.

So what have been some of these marginal gains?

Building a practice start identical to that in Beijing for the BMX riders close to the Manchester Velodrome

Rigorous identification of potential medal winning talent and dropping cyclists off the team who under-performed

Availability of the Manchester velodrome as a state-of-the-art training venue

Successful joint ventures with businesses such as Adidas in providing ultra-efficient cycling suits for the team

Lottery funding of around £3.5m a year which allowed athletes to train full time and a back up staff including psychiatrists and former world champions to be employed as coaches

Using Chris Boardman who head up technical research and development to make the bikes even lighter and faster on the track - this has included making use of the UK’s
comparative advantage and expertise in Formula 1 including testing new equipment in wind tunnels

Cutting the number of athletes on the programme - using only those who had gold medal potential and introducing a “medal or nothing mentality”

These factors allied to the emergence of a once in a generation cluster of world class riders such as Hoy, Pendleton and Wiggins seem to have given the GB cycling team unprecented advantages to push them beyond their rivals. Cutting edge technology, notably effective management of riders and the supporting team and investment in velodromes in England and Scotland have come together to create the ideal conditions for the golden burst of medals!

The Times
“The anonymous heroes who really deserve a medal”