Wednesday 5 October 2016 17:22, UK
The Miracle of Medinah, Liverpool in Istanbul, England at Headingley – to the list of great sporting comebacks we should surely now add the British track cycling team in 2016.
The riders and coaches may have seen six golds, four silvers and one bronze at the Rio Olympic Games coming, but given the turmoil of the past three years, and in particular the past four months, hardly anyone else did.
Think back to April 2014, when Sir Dave Brailsford, arguably one of the greatest managers in the history of sport, left his role as British Cycling performance director to concentrate on leading Team Sky.
Think back to the humbling 2015 World Championships in Paris, when they hit a 14-year low by winning just three silver medals and finishing 10th in the medals table.
And think back as recently as April, when the team descended into meltdown after allegations of sexism, bullying and discrimination towards para-cyclists prompted the resignation of Brailsford's successor, Shane Sutton, and an independent review into the culture of British Cycling.
It seemed infeasible that they could recover in time for the Rio 2016 Olympics, but not only have they done so, they have once again dominated the boards and blown the rest of the world away. From the abyss they have somehow conjured another gold rush.
They haven't quite matched the seven-gold hauls of Beijing 2008 or London 2012, but it is still an overwhelming success and a handsome return on the heavy investment that goes into Britain's track team.
And for all the accusations against him, this has to be seen as Sutton's masterpiece. He may not have been present in Rio, or indeed for the final months of build-up, but it was he who had the foresight to rip up British Cycling's coaching structure after replacing Brailsford and it was he who rebuilt it piece by piece by recruiting the best coaches from around the world.
From Germany, he brought in the endurance guru Heiko Salzwedel to look after the men's team pursuit, which in turn allowed Paul Manning to move back to coaching the women's pursuit team, with whom he had previously built such a close bond.
From rivals France, Sutton plucked the New Zealand sprint specialist Justin Grace, who six months earlier had coached Francois Pervis to a clean sweep of sprint medals at the 2014 World Championships.
Salzwedel and Manning both went on to mastermind world record-breaking, gold medal-winning performances from their riders in Rio, while Grace was integral to not only getting Jason Kenny back to his imperious best, but also transforming Callum Skinner from a fringe rider to a two-time Olympic medallist and one of the fastest sprinters in the world.
Similarly, Becky James has been nursed from fearing her career would be ended by a knee injury just over a year ago to winning two silvers in Rio, while Katy Marchant has been coached from heptathlete to Olympic cycling bronze medallist.
Inevitably, there have been some tough decisions along the way and not everyone in British cycling circles is whooping in celebration.
Despite winning London 2012 Olympic team pursuit gold alongside Laura Trott and Joanna Rowsell Shand, Dani King was dumped from the Olympic podium programme and both Andy Tennant and Jon Dibben were snubbed for the men's pursuit team to make way for Sir Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish.
And then there is Jess Varnish, whose sacking from the British team in March and subsequent allegations of sexism against Sutton triggered this spring's scandal. The past week will no doubt have been a tough watch for all of them.
But for all the pain caused and dreams dashed, even those shown the door by Sutton and his fellow coaches must recognise the justification in those choices given what Britain have achieved in Rio.
They have gone from being ridiculed to being the envy of the sporting world once more, all in the space of a few months.
