Neal Henderson is the Sport Science Manager at Boulder Center for Sports Medicine. He is a USA Cycling certified coach and works with a diverse clientele at BCSM. He has been Taylor Phinney’s personal coach since 2006 and traveled with Phinney and his family in the lead-up to the Beijing Olympics. This is his wrap-up column following the Olympics.

The 2008 Olympic Games have officially ended and Taylor Phinney had the best finish for an American men’s individual pursuit rider since Steve Hegg won gold in 1984.

The British cycling team had an incredible Olympics and took seven out of ten possible gold medals on the Laoshan track, including red hot Bradley Wiggins who set an Olympic record in the individual pursuit.

As an 18-year old, Taylor had a lot of first time experiences in the past year, but the Olympics were by far the biggest and carried the most pressure. Fortunately, Taylor brought his A-game and raced like a seasoned competitor riding in the qualifying round to a 7th-place finish. This earned him a ride in the round 1 competition, which only the top 8 riders out of 18 qualified to ride.

Previous Olympic and world championship medalists Bradley McGee, Jens Huizenga, and Sergei Escobar all failed to move to round 1 showing how competitive the racing was. Taylor raced in the 6th of 9 parings and provided some drama by finishing with the third best time with six riders to go. Fortunately, only four riders of the remaining six posted finishing times faster than Taylor in qualifying and T got to ride again.

Everything leading up to the qualifying round had us thinking that Taylor would likely be riding just under 4 minutes and 20 seconds. We had expected a number of riders to be in the same range and therefore chose a race gear that would put Taylor in his comfortably high RPM at that speed.

Phinney's cheering section

Photo: Neal Henderson

Surprisingly, only two riders broke the 4:20 time in qualifying — eventual gold and silver medalists Brit Bradley Wiggins and Hayden Roulston of New Zealand. The tight grouping was in the 4:21 to 4:22 range, and fortunately Taylor’s qualifying time was in the range. Unfortunately, his time was seventh best which meant he would be paired with the rider with the second best time for the first round ride on Saturday.

In an interesting twist of fate, that paired Taylor with Hayden Roulston of New Zealand, one of the Kiwi’s who we spent a fair amount of training with in Bordeaux, France just a few weeks earlier. Additionally, Sarah Hammer of the USA was also paired with a Kiwi, Ali Shanks, in her round 1 match-up. That was really interesting to me, as Ali had stayed with my family last summer for over a month — so I had torn allegiances in their matchup. With Taylor, though, I knew that we had our work cut out for us and that anything was possible at the Olympics.

In the Olympic pursuit, only the winners of the round 1 competition moved in the final round of competition … so time didn’t matter as much, and it was all about winning the matchup. Time is a factor, as the match-ups for gold/silver and bronze/4th are based on the winning times of round 1 – but the first factor is winning.

Taylor got a visit from his parents on Saturday in the Olympic village, which was a nice boost for him. I had been fortunate in being able to get in on Friday to visit Taylor in the village before his qualifying ride. The Olympic village is a study of human morphology, as you see some of the tallest and thickest athletes from around the world as well as some of the smallest and most petite.

Lunch in the Olympic village is the ultimate people watching experience. I ate with Taylor and US Madison rider Mike Friedman, and then helped Taylor pack up for his Friday date at the track. Connie and Davis also got to do the same thing on Saturday, and I know that they enjoyed having some quiet time with Taylor in the Village and also being able to see what the Olympic village was like today compared to when they were racing in LA.

For Taylor’s second ride we were all hoping that Taylor would have a great race and make into the final medal round. He got out to a great start and at 1K he and Hayden were basically equal. Then Hayden started to pull ahead, and it was easy for me to see that Taylor wasn’t going to be able to come back. T rode a great race but fell short. It’s not much of a consolation to know that you got beat by the silver medalist … but we knew that Taylor put everything that he had into both of his rides.

In fact on Friday in his qualifying ride, Taylor went to step off his bike and his legs buckled and he sat down on the floor until he could walk again. I had never seen Taylor push himself that hard in a race, and it confirmed that there wasn’t anything more that he could have done. There were great experiences that we had and lessons learned not only in Beijing, but throughout the past year and especially in the seven week around the world journey that ended in Beijing.

Though some people may have been disappointed that Taylor didn’t make it into the medal round, I was proud of the incredible run that Taylor made not only in qualifying for the games, but in riding two out of three possible races in the pursuit at the Olympics. We already have our eyes on London in 2012 and are preparing for a 3-ride Olympics there in the pursuit! Oh yeah, US track nationals are only 6 weeks away and the first world cup track race of the season is just 10-weeks away…not too much rest for the weary. In times like this, it’s a good thing that Taylor is just 18 years old!