The National jersey just not good enough.

On Sunday I tuned in to BBC2 to watch the World Championship Road Race. There had been plenty of pre race chatter about the chances of Chris Froome, this years Tour de France winner, or the help of last years Tour winner Bradley Wiggins. 
With the Tour result under his belt and the Olympic Race also won, the nation rewarded Wiggins with a CBE (Commander of the British Empire). I'm afraid the Empire would have been still born if he had been one of its  Commanders!  He has shown himself to be flawed since the marvellous year of his great achievements, spectacularly in his fear of descending the mountains in this years Tour of Italy. He was scared and his comment "I descended like a girl" didn't endear him to the women cyclists who have done so much to put the UK on the cycling map. His general demeanour leaves a lot to be desired, self centred, egotistical may be part of the ingredient that makes a winner and he has certainly shown himself to be one of those but when the chips are down and he is asked to battle for the team or pulling on a national jersey, to represent the country, if there's nothing in it for Wiggins then he's not up for the task. Mark Cavandish is also a character who is known for his bluntness but he wears his heart on his chest when on a bike and during the race he buried himself with effort to carry Froome into the race. 
The weather was atrocious, the rain non stop making cornering a nightmare. You would have thought that riders from this country would have been, if not in their element at least not out of their depth but to a man they jacked it in and retired.
The "men" from the dry warm countries stayed the course and competed. Cancellara, Nbali, Sagan, Valverde and many others, having pulled on the national jersey were aware of their responsibilities, were aware of their fans and their countryman, they were there to compete and compete they did.
What does this say of our lads. Has the experiment of drilling out our sense of nationality in the rush to become multi-national, multi-ethnic actually worked and we no longer have a sense of unity and are rather the individualistic society that Mrs Thatcher so wanted us to be. You see it in many of the money corrupted sports like football where pulling on the national shirt was something to die for and on the field they gave there all. Today they have an eye on the bread and butter club team before giving their all and we are left with the sight of mediocrity.