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Olympic road race


CB Saint
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I've never really watched the cycling until the final stage of the Tour de France.

 

Am watching this on BBC3 until KO.

 

Quite interesting though I don't fully understand it. Do the riders have radio contact with their support vehicles?

 

Not in this race. They do on the tour

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Wasn't Chris Boardman one of the taters?

 

Oh yeah, you're right. He knows nothing about cycling.

 

There were one or two who understood, but some of the questions after the event, and some of the idiots on Sky this morning, clearly have no concept of professional cycling. You can't chase every breakaway, especially with a team of 4 (plus Cav) but, when you need to reel in the breakaway, you need help from other teams, who were too concerned about us until it was too late. There's no way a team of 5 can put the kind of effort in on their own to get the peloton back together.

Edited by Chin Strain
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Cav should have struck out alone after Nibali, would have got into the 'front peloton'. Nibali's move caused the 'breakaway' to become a second peloton. Tactical error from Cav imo. But he's still a legend, along woith Wiggo. Froome is a legend in the making.

 

That would have had the same end result. If Cav had been in the breakaway the rest would make sure that it didn't finish in a bunch sprint. They'd have launched attack after attack - one man simply can't follow every attack on his own.

 

It's a team event so, if it was a tactical error, it was a team tactical error. Irrespective of that, Brailsford said they'd do it the same way again. What sunk us was everyone else being too concerned about us to join in the chase...until it was too late. That and the lack of information about how far the breakaway was in front - crazy imo.

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Hmm yes, I know that Chin. But CB earlier was implying that the BBC taters didn't know what they were talking about.

 

Whereas, clearly, they did!

 

Pretty much in every race a peloton can close much bigger gaps 100 km out, and in fact they did and had it under control. The thirty man break later on was the issue. They all worked together, whereas the peloton were content to let gb chase it down. 4 men having to work against thirty.

 

Gb were a victim of their own success. The other teams didnt want to help get cav into a sprint situation and held back, but as a result blew their own race

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Am I the only one not to understand the tactics in this cycling malarkey? The bit about how teams (your own and others) affecting the result in what is an individual medal event.

 

Why don't the best competitors simply just try to get from start to finish in the best possible time? Why try and turn and individual event into a team event?

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Am I the only one not to understand the tactics in this cycling malarkey? The bit about how teams (your own and others) affecting the result in what is an individual medal event.

 

Why don't the best competitors simply just try to get from start to finish in the best possible time? Why try and turn and individual event into a team event?

 

In essence Trousers, slip streaming plays a massive part in this. If you look at the peloton, you see the front couple of guys working really hard, and the ones behind free wheeling but going at the same pace. You need more than 4 guys to share the work.

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Am I the only one not to understand the tactics in this cycling malarkey? The bit about how teams (your own and others) affecting the result in what is an individual medal event.

 

Why don't the best competitors simply just try to get from start to finish in the best possible time? Why try and turn and individual event into a team event?

The only way to acheive this would be to limit each country to one entrant - the moment you get more than one there is the chance they will work together, as indeed riders in a breakaway may also choose to do. Having up to 5 per country means you will inevitably get team tactics, both the positive aspect as demonstrated by GB, and the negative as shown by the Germans and Aussies.

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Why don't the best competitors simply just try to get from start to finish in the best possible time? Why try and turn and individual event into a team event?

 

What you are describing is the time trial. This is the road race and it's a much longer and much more tactical event where wind resistance is everything. By staying in the slip stream you use a fraction of the energy of the guy at the front. Who would want to be out the front busting a gut all day for everyone else to take advantage?

 

In essence riders break away from the pack then the peleton takes it in turns to be the guy at the front trying to catch the breakaway. The trouble was because we have CAV, team GB were the only ones in the peleton to try and work down the breakaway. Germany and one or two other teams had great sprinters too so they should have helped, but they didn't, so they gave their team mates no chance to win.

 

What the road race offers is a chance for different types of riders to win, break away specialists, sprinters, and all in between. I have to say I enjoyed it almost as much as I do the TDF, just a pity we couldn't bring the breakaway back and get cav into position.

Edited by Chez
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The only way to acheive this would be to limit each country to one entrant - the moment you get more than one there is the chance they will work together, as indeed riders in a breakaway may also choose to do. Having up to 5 per country means you will inevitably get team tactics, both the positive aspect as demonstrated by GB, and the negative as shown by the Germans and Aussies.

 

The Olympic ethos is about individual achievement. In some events you can be disqualified for assisting other competitors.

 

The GB coach didn't help by saying his team was the "best the world had ever seen" and obviously put few backs up. He also advertised their tactics. Did he think that the others would just let them win?

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The Olympic ethos is about individual achievement. In some events you can be disqualified for assisting other competitors.

 

The GB coach didn't help by saying his team was the "best the world had ever seen" and obviously put few backs up. He also advertised their tactics. Did he think that the others would just let them win?

 

Really? What about relays, basketball, rowing, hockey, volleyball, waterpolo etc etc

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Pretty much in every race a peloton can close much bigger gaps 100 km out, and in fact they did and had it under control. The thirty man break later on was the issue. They all worked together, whereas the peloton were content to let gb chase it down. 4 men having to work against thirty.

 

Gb were a victim of their own success. The other teams didnt want to help get cav into a sprint situation and held back, but as a result blew their own race

 

But that's not what you said though was it. You said the commentators know nothing about road racing. Well the commentators were Chris Boardman and Hugh Porter, who, i'll be willing to bet, know a **** of a lot more about road racing than you.

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But that's not what you said though was it. You said the commentators know nothing about road racing. Well the commentators were Chris Boardman and Hugh Porter, who, i'll be willing to bet, know a **** of a lot more about road racing than you.

 

The commentators on the race did, but there were some buffoons after the race asking stupid questions - Cav was riled by one to the point that he said 'do you know anything about bike racing?'

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