KEY POINTS:
When people look for answers to British cycling's amazing success at the Beijing Olympics, most have settled on money and technology. But the real answer may be Steve Peters.
Never heard of him? No, but some of Britain's nastiest murderers have. Peters is a clinical psychologist who profiled,
among others, notorious murderer Ian Huntley. He played a key role in Britain's seven golds, three silvers and two bronzes from the 30 track cycling medals up for grabs.
Peters has become 'head' coach in more ways than one. He is now the inspirational force behind the cycling team's triumphs in Beijing, particularly that of sprint gold medallist Victoria Pendleton, whom most cycling observers say has gone from choker to champion under Peters' tutelage. Pendleton rated Peters the "most important person in my career".
However, all the British cyclists - only one failed to get a medal - have benefited from Peters' work. It's a long way from his normal trade of treating personality disorders at Broadmoor maximum security hospital. He has tended criminals such as Huntley, the killer of schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. Others in Broadmoor include Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe and Stockwell Rapist Kenneth Erskine.
But he has proved effective in channelling cyclists' minds, focusing on their performance, eradicating the competition from their minds and being the best they can be.
It has been an exercise in training up the athletes' logical side and diminishing their emotional side - what the track team called their "chimps" (as in, monkey on their backs).
After a 2004 Athens Olympics when a shy Pendleton froze, she wanted to retire. Peters got into her head and turned her into a double world champion and now Olympic gold medallist who dispensed with all her rivals, including the feared Australians, with ease.
And the king of the Olympic track, Scot Chris Hoy, won three gold medals in Beijing after Peters worked with him in Athens. He prepared him for the fact that three riders in the kilometre time trial would break the world record ahead of Hoy's ride in Greece. The Scot was so well prepared that he went out and broke it again and won the gold. He used the same techniques this year to win three golds at the Laoshan velodrome.
"Anxiety is a common problem with performance athletes," Peters told British newspapers. "If that person is relatively balanced, sports psychology will work wonders, but if they are put under real pressure it doesn't hold ground. You end up with something we call the dynamic problem where you go into a panic mode as a norm. You will crack under pressure because your emotions hijack you.
"I explain to the cyclists how their brain works, get them to recognise when they are using parts which are not advantageous to them and get them to tune in to controlling it. You are trying to reconstruct the personality and tap into the strength within the brain to contain the bits that have been hijacking you without you realising it."
There is another aspect to the British success, however - the 60-strong management team assembled by performance director David Brailsford and which is seen as the blueprint for British sports ahead of London 2012.
Money has also been a factor - the cyclists have had nearly $55 million to spend over the past four years, almost the entire Sparc allocation to all New Zealand sports across the same period.
Technology has thus been affordable, like Formula One technology and wind tunnels to make everything from the new specialised rubber suits to designing helmets and handle bars.
