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At last summer's Olympics, gold-medal favorite Rebecca Twigg refused to pilot Superbike II, the wondersteed that was to prove America's technological prowess to the world, saying it handled horribly on the track. In the end, USA Cycling's $5 million Project '96 resulted in just one paltry silver medal. How could we have spent the GDP of a small island nation on such a dismal flop? The fun is in the details.

First, there was the matter of the bike's ultrathin frame. Aerodynamic, to be sure. But five weeks before the Games, members of the pursuit team heard a...troubling sound during a test ride. Seems one of the vaunted frames had cracked. "We had a high-stress area," admits engineer Scott Gordon.

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Twigg complained that she didn't receive her bike early enough to test it.

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Still, there are those who say that the project was a success. After all, Superbike II produced the Americans' fastest times ever. "To believe the bicycle was going to make the complete difference was illusion," says its designer, Forrest Yelverton. "We have the best bicycle on the planet. We didn't have the best athletes." And so we come to the bottom line: The Superbike squad--with only two real contenders (Twigg and time-trial silver medalist Erin Hartwell) and such fossils as 43-year-old Kent Bostick--had little hope to begin with. "Everybody says the project was a disaster, but we got what we deserved," Bostick says. "We need a better pool of athletes, so somebody like me doesn't win the trials."

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The federation had invested in the development of the so-called SuperBike. Twigg, after using the bike earlier in the Games, refused to ride it, citing poor individual fit and claiming that pressure from the staff on her to use the SuperBike and their refusal to grant accreditation to her personal coach, Eddie Borysewicz, left her defocused.

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Twigg won a bronze medal in the individual pursuit in Barcelona and a silver in the road race at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. She was a heavy favorite in the individual pursuit in Atlanta after winning the world championship last year in world-record time.

She ran a discouraging race on her new SuperBike, however, and ditched the high-tech creation for her second heat. She fared no better on a conventional bike, failing to advance from Friday's quarterfinal round.

``I wasn't focused,'' Twigg said, blaming problems with her bicycle and frustrations with the U.S. Cycling Federation over its refusal to allow her personal coach to be with her at the games.

Afterward, Carmichael said he couldn't fathom how Twigg could start training in April for a race in July. He acknowledged he was ultimately responsible for his athletes, but said: ``You can't force riders to do things they don't want to.''

Twigg was infuriated.

``They've got to come up with some excuses'' she said, referring to the U.S. team's mostly dismal showing at the Olympics despite its multimillion-dollar training and technology program that produced the SuperBike.

Twigg criticized the bicycle, billed as the best on the planet. She said it wasn't properly custom-fit, and a second one was flown in the day before her competition.

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