Team IG Sigma Sport

Olympic Dreams – Dan Craven

It’s Wednesday morning and I’m sitting on a couch, watching tennis on TV, nothing terribly unusual, nothing out of the ordinary; until I look out the window. Not only is the sun shining in the UK, but the scene that spreads out before me is a somewhat unusual sight – I am looking out on the entrance to the Athletes Village at the London 2012 Olympic Games; and I am on the ‘good’ side of the fence – the inside.

As of Saturday 28 July, 10h00 (BST) I can call myself an Olympian. Not (like a friend of mine suggested) a Greek God sitting in the clouds looking down upon humanity; but merely an athlete. A ‘mere’ athlete who has competed on the biggest stage in the world and become part of a select group of athletes – a honour that I shall remember for the rest of my days. Unfortunately there is an upside and a downside to that; it also means that the outcome of the race shall always remain with me.

It is no secret that I have had a very quiet and unimpressive season so far but two recent trips abroad with a lot of hard training and racing brought me to the Games with form that I was really pleased with and knew that I would be able to make myself, and my country, proud. It all came to nothing though and after 120km of the planned 250km I was left sitting on the sidelines. I was caught up in a crash before the first climb up Box Hill and although I stayed up, my bicycle was pulled from underneath me as it became entangled with Luca Paolini’s bike.

I thought I would be safe with the group of riders I found myself with, Paolini and Cancellara amongst others, but that did not turn out to be the case. The short story is I never got back on after the crash; the long story is a whole lot of excuses.

I didn’t have a mechanic leaning out of the team car ‘fixing’ my derailleur; I was caught out several times by clueless convoy drivers, twice having to slow to near standstill in blocked roads who then sped past me once around a corner; I froze and felt as if my legs seized up; I’m a poor little boy and don’t you feel sorry for me. Shame.

It seems inconceivable now that I got back to the convoy twice but still didn’t get back to the race – a real reflection on some of the driving. Complain as I may, I can’t escape the fact that after my year so far, it simply looks like a continuation of an old theme. It is pretty obvious that I’m devastated by the result and I slept for no more than half a hour on Saturday night but there is nothing that can be done about that now. I was there, I was part of it.

I was in the bunch that rode out through London on fully closed roads – with so many crowds cheering next to the road that I could barely hear myself think never mind have a conversation with anyone in the bunch. I spent a month in Rwanda to qualify for the Olympics and deserved to be there. I have represented my Country at the Olympic Games!

Give me a few more days and somewhat sleepless nights and I will be over myself again. In the meantime I have some training to do. Tour of Britain is around the corner and I have a team to head back to – no rest for the wicked.