Road World Championship, Copenhagen, 19th-25th September

So you are saying that the tactics were about dominating the race and showing the world how good we are more than it was about helping Cavendish win? (Obviously they would have played their part in ensuring a sprint finish in any case, but perhaps a bit less so if they weren't 'setting down a marker').

The fact that dominating the race helped give Cav confidence and encourage the feeling that he could not let his team mates down was a bonus presumably? Or was that it - setting down the marker was the best way of helping ensure the world's greatest sprinter won the race by helping incentivise him rather than specifically being a plan to help deliver him perfectly to the line?

I hope that I am not putting words in your mouth.

No, of course the work they did was intended to help Cavendish win, assuming that if it came to a bunch gallop, he would be in with a chance. However, why, in a world championship race, would Team GB not put their best wheels forward? There's no race the next day and of course it's a tremendous source of team prestige if a team plays such a leading role, making Cavendish's win all the more deserved because his team has been working on the front and has been one of the strongest in the race.