Olympic RR **spoilers**

[lb81]

Cavendish on the BBC sport website this morning...
"It's doable," he said. "I couldn't do it if I was doing this alone but I need four of the strongest bike riders in the world to help me. "And I have got four of the strongest bike riders in the world to help me."
"We were out training today [Thursday] and it was like 'Oh my God this is the dream team'. Hopefully we can put that into practice and deliver the results,"
"We have got four Tour de France stage winners in the team, first and second in the general classification and the British champion.
"They are incredibly loyal guys, incredibly patriotic guys and really want to do this."
And then Wiggins with my favourite quotes, love these...
"It's going to be difficult and it's a long race as well but I think other teams will be looking at us and thinking, 'How are we going to compete with these guys?'.
"And we're just sitting here not really worrying about the rest, we're just concentrating on ourselves."

 

[Strathlubnaig]

If - god forbid - that a frencman wins - is there a French Lesley Garrett that can be summoned to sing the Marseillaise at the medal ceremony in revenge for what they did on Sunday

what THEY did ? The lassie is from englandshire, hardly the French's fault she canny haud a tune

 

[Cheddar George]

OK, so the mens road race seems straightforward, team GB riding as a team to get Cav in for the sprint. Anybody got any information on the women ? The last i heard was that it was not a happy situation within the team.

 

[siadwell]

Aunty Beeb has Olympic programming most of Saturday on BBC1. Coverage of the RR could be a bit patchy. According to TV Guide:
9:30-11:30 "also the chance to see the early stages of the men's cycling road race"
11:30-13:00 "updates on the men's cycling road race"
13:15-16:45 "conclusion to the men's cycling road race"

BBC Sport Interactive Freeview 1 has solid coverage between 10:45 and 13:15.

BBC Olympics 3 (only on Sky?) appears to cover the whole thing 9:50 to 16:25.

Full listings at http://www.tvguide.co.uk/default.asp?systemid=10&cTime=7/28/2012 12:00:00 PM&thisTime=12&thisDay=7/28/2012&catColor=

Further to this, Freesat EPG is now showing 24 dedicated live Olympic HD channels.
Alas, there's apparently a problem with Humax Freesat+ boxes that prevents these channels being recorded.

 

[totallyfixed]

There are 2 gold medals up for grabs this weekend in cycling, one of them is on Sunday, little wonder the women get less coverage than the men going by this thread. As an attempt to redress the balance I'm going to say Vos for the win with a dust up for the minor placings. In both races I feel a crash could affect the outcome more than is usual due to narrow roads and not riding in their normal trade teams.

 

[Chuffy]

There are 2 gold medals up for grabs this weekend in cycling, one of them is on Sunday, little wonder the women get less coverage than the men going by this thread. As an attempt to redress the balance I'm going to say Vos for the win with a dust up for the minor placings. In both races I feel a crash could affect the outcome more than is usual due to narrow roads and not riding in their normal trade teams.

I don't know much about women's racing, but I get the impression that our team isn't quite as happy and well drilled as the mens.

 

[iLB]

I think you are better off blaming the UCI and mainstream media for the lack of coverage for womens cycling than this thread.

 

[smutchin]

OK, so the mens road race seems straightforward, team GB riding as a team to get Cav in for the sprint. Anybody got any information on the women ? The last i heard was that it was not a happy situation within the team.

My money is on Marianne Vos for the women's race - really going out on a limb with that one! Or maybe Giorgia Bronzini.

I don't know anything about discord in the GB women's team (I don't know a lot about women's pro cycling at all, tbh), though I've heard that Nicole Cooke isn't the most popular rider, being a bit of an individualist à la Thomas Voeckler. Lizzie Armitstead, Lucy Martin and Emma Pooley all ride on the same pro team, so you'd expect they'll get along fine and be well drilled.

d.

 

[totallyfixed]

Not blaming this thread, more that it is symptomatic of what is wrong with women's sport and the media generally. Sexism in this country [and others] is alive and well as witnessed by both media coverage and the discrepancy in distance between the men and women in the road race. Cycling needs to catch up with athletics and swimming [to name two of the more mainstream sports] in equality when it comes to endurance events. Don't want this to be a rant but my better half gets frustrated by this.

 

[smutchin]

little wonder the women get less coverage than the men going by this thread.

I'm happy to discuss the women's race but I'm coming from a position of lack of knowledge - as iLB says, the lack of coverage doesn't help (and yes, I agree the lack of coverage is very disappointing, to put it mildly). Apart from the Brits, I know about the likes of Marianne Vos, Giorgia Bronzini, Judith Arndt and a few others, but beyond that... not a lot.

Perhaps someone who follows women's cycling can help us with a few pointers?

d.

 

[VamP]

Not sure if someone hasn't already posted, but these are the bikes they'll be on. Aggregation of marginal gains indeed.

 

[smutchin]

This just about sums it up, really...

Cycling News

July 29, Olympic Women's Road Race: London 140km

There's nothing to see here.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/2012-olympic-games/olympic-womens-road-race

 

[iLB]

Not sure if someone hasn't already posted, but these are the bikes they'll be on. Aggregation of marginal gains indeed.

Ahh very interesting, thanks for posting. There was a picture in Tuesday's Equipe of Brad back out training in the UK, riding that bike, clearly not a Pinarello but I couldn't work out what and why.

 

[iLB]

It does seem slightly odd that you would switch bikes though.

 

[marinyork]

Further to this, Freesat EPG is now showing 24 dedicated live Olympic HD channels.
Alas, there's apparently a problem with Humax Freesat+ boxes that prevents these channels being recorded.

Just to be crystal clear for this as the combined reach of virgin, freesat and sky is quite large and will include a lot on this forum

Virgin media channel 550 onwards.
Freesat channels 151-174

When off air they show what the schedule is.