CYCLING: Ian O'Riordansays Ireland could learn a lot from our neighbours
ON THE far side of Beijing, away from the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube, you'll find the Laoshan Bicycle Moto Cross venue, otherwise known as a BMX track. The scene is more X-Games than Olympic Games, the vibe more MTV than BBC, and the dress code strictly board shorts and wraparound Oakleys.
All morning grown-ups are speeding around on kids' bikes, and up in the press tribune, the talk is of killer hoops and tabletops, track carnage and crash and burn. This is the latest Olympic event designed for the PlayStation generation, and when the going gets crazy, the crazy turn pro.
And it may just be a snapshot of the future. BMX medals count just like the others. The race is already on. You don't need to be born in the mountains and have run to school to be good at BMX. You don't need size-17 feet and the wingspan of an albatross. You just need a little bike, a little nerve, and some old-fashioned competitive spirit. Maybe this is where more of our high-performance plans should be targeted.
It's not your typical Olympic venue but it's not unfamiliar either. The 350-metre track is entirely man-made and designed purely for speed, thrill and radical manoeuvres. It starts on a severely steep descent gate, circles around a series of jumps - including one 40-footer - and follows a marginal descent until the finish. Eight riders per race; and for those that don't wipe out early on, it lasts just 35 seconds, the top speed a dizzying 40 miles per hour.
They'll be at this again this morning, after which they'll hand out gold medals exactly the same as those they gave to Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps. If any further evidence was needed that the Olympics is broadening its base and appeal beyond the traditional sports, then BMX provides it.
Perhaps this is the kind of Olympic sport Ireland should be looking at. And it doesn't need to look very far. We may not boast a velodrome, but we do have a few BMX tracks. All you need is a field and a JCB. There's one down the road from me in Marley Park, and if I were 20 years younger, this is where I would start training.
The sport is owned by teenagers wearing baggy shorts hanging around outside concrete apartments. It's cool and exciting, and the Olympics realised that. In 1993 the sport was sanctioned by the International Cycling Union, and a decade later, in 2003, was voted into the Olympics. If first impressions are anything to go by, it's here to stay - and it opens another window of opportunity for the medal-chasing nations.
It's no surprise that Britain and New Zealand have already jumped in. The Americans may have founded the sport out of their dynamic West Coast lifestyle of the 1970s, but it wasn't long spreading, and it's been a World Championship sport since 1982.
It seems inevitable that the women's gold medal today will go to either Shanaze Reade of Britain or Sarah Walker of New Zealand, and New Zealand also boasts one of the main contenders in the men's race in Marc Willers.
Few countries have impacted on Beijing's medal table with the stunning unexpectedness of Britain and New Zealand, and their impact on the sport of BMX is a mere extension of that.
Just 12 years ago in Atlanta, Britain won a single gold medal, and the whole country was asking how the deep sporting tradition had suddenly become so shallow.
Now they're asking where the gold rush will end. Four gold medals won over the past two days have taken Britain's tally of 16 gold and 37 in total past the 1920 Games in Antwerp - where 15 gold medals were secured - and making the Beijing Olympics the country's best since 1908.
The previous best New Zealand haul was four - all bronze - in Seoul 1988; so far in Beijing they've earned themselves three gold, one silver, and five bronze.
Britain's medal haul is rarely compared with Ireland's, but their talent pool can be, and their cycling success in Beijing (eight gold, four silver, and two bronze) certainly hasn't happened by accident. If Ireland is to seriously look beyond its traditional Olympic sports then it may not need to look very far.
British Cycling's chief executive Peter King says their model is there to be replicated. Other British sports are sure to follow suit, and with a little foresight, Ireland could too. "Our expertise is always available if anyone wants to come to us," says King.
"I know some people might see it as a little kid's sport," says Grant White, a former BMX rider from Australia who was recruited by British Cycling. "People look at the 100 metres athletes and know they are elite. They should look at these guys the same way.
"It is almost identical, about power and pure explosion. It is also one of the most technical sports, to get the turns, to land the jumps, to have the wheels exactly where you need them. It's a cross between 100 metres and ballet."
And, most of all, it's a lot of fun.
