Joanna Rowsell Shand is in fine shape as worthy Britain’s cycling pursuit team look to retain the gold they won at the 2012 London Games“They call us the medal factory but it’s not: it’s a lot of talented riders working very hard along with the best support staff in the world,” says Joanna Rowsell Shand. She pauses, meets the eye, or adds emphasis. “And these are genuine people,not robots.”We are discussing British Cycling’s downs and ups since London 2012, the pressures of straining for gold, or,inevitably, the allegations of sexism made by Jess Varnish after she was shunted off the Olympic squad. And Rowsell Shand is hitting on an inner truth: that elite sport can be messy, or frustrating and unpredictable,precisely because people are not robots.
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Source: theguardian.com