Olympic cycling - track and road (may contain spoilers)

[GuyBoden]

Well done Anna Kiesenhoffer, a great ride.

The Dutch got it wrong, in so many ways.

"Tweeting shortly after the race, José Been posted that Van Vleuten confirmed she thought she had won the Olympic title, saying: “I didn’t know. I was wrong. I didn’t know”"

 

[Ian H]

Michael Hutchinson
@Doctor_Hutch
People forgetting I was up the road was the only reason I ever won any road races. Always fun seeing the expression on the guy who came in second place. If you stood in the right spot you could catch their eye just as they were putting their arms in the air.

 

[Salad Dodger]

I think racing is so much more interesting without radios and team cars pulling alongside to give instructions.
And (sorry for going off topic very briefly) I would ban pits to cars comms in motor racing, too.

 

[mjr]

I think racing is so much more interesting without radios and team cars pulling alongside to give instructions.

I'm not sure. I like the Olympics not having them and 43x2 national team cars wouldn't be practical anyway.

If they had radios, wouldn't the Olympics be just like the world championships but with less interesting courses? Hardly fitting.

 

[rich p]

I'm not sure. I like the Olympics not having them and 43x2 national team cars wouldn't be practical anyway.

If they had radios, wouldn't the Olympics be just like the world championships but with less interesting courses? Hardly fitting.

Isn't that what he said?

 

[Adam4868]

I like the Olympics....but I'd take a three week GT any day

 

[Once a Wheeler]

Let's hear it for Shapira and Plichta! The greatest Olympians are not always medal winners…

…and let's hear it for Kiesenhoffer — at least one of them is!

 

[mjr]

Isn't that what he said?

Yes but I'm not sure so I can see reasons both ways. Sorry if you were not expecting me to be indecisive!

 

[Aravis]

Not allowing radios in the Olympics (or any other event) - absolutely fine.

Not having blackboards to inform riders of gaps? I'm not sure why they'd want to do that, but provided the teams know in advance, I guess that's OK.

But if the blackboard men don't turn up, or are told to stay away without informing the riders in advance then I think that's wrong, and liking the outcome doesn't change that.

How are riders supposed to race sensibly if they don't know who is up the road, and approximately how far? I don't know how long ago blackboards started to be used, but I imagine they pre-date the First World War.

But for balance:

With the pit area/feeding station on the final circuit, you'd've thought it wouldn't have been too hard at least to tell your key riders how many were still away.

I think the Dutch are big enough to take it on the chin.

 

[mjr]

But if the blackboard men don't turn up, or are told to stay away without informing the riders in advance then I think that's wrong, and liking the outcome doesn't change that.

Blackboard riders visible on TV. Maybe not as often as riders used to continuous radio updates want or are used to, but they seemed to be around. Lizzie Deignan even complained that there were too many motorcycles.

 

[mjr]

Looks from this like the finish arch maybe didn't show the winner or start counting up the +00:01 gap after the winner? Odd.

View: https://mobile.twitter.com/faustocoppi60/status/1419213548954259456

 

[T.M.H.N.E.T]

I posted a few pages back re getting a wriggle on to catch the break, but the onscreen gfx didn't correlate this information for quite a while. It was only when the camera panned back to Anna that I realised I wasn't seeing things.

Little wonder there was confuddlement in the peloton, nobody really seemed to know what was going on anywhere. But also that being the case, where perhaps the riders with their sights on medals (them all) could have been paying more attention forward, rather than looking back at other riders to work

 

[Mike_P]

Noticeable as far as I could see no other rider congratulated the winner or the assumed winner.

 

[mjr]

Daniel Friebe reckons the peloton were told:

View: https://mobile.twitter.com/friebos/status/1419239338299244544

 

[Aravis]

Blackboard riders visible on TV. Maybe not as often as riders used to continuous radio updates want or are used to, but they seemed to be around. Lizzie Deignan even complained that there were too many motorcycles.

Fair enough. I can't remember seeing any boards, and Boardman (oh dear) mentioned the lack of them quite a lot. But making the assumption they'd all been pulled was a bit of a jump.

I'm also not sure what I think about radios generally, but I return my point that to race sensibly riders are entitled to reasonably accurate information. If the organisers ban radios they need to take responsibility for making sure that what remains is up to scratch. It seems the arguments over what actually happened are starting.

But first and foremost, a heroic ride from Kiesenhoffer.