Olympic RR *SPOILERS*

nevman

Message here then-always have a Plan B?Would it have hurt to send someone up the road during the BH shuttles to cover that break-maybe David Millar.I cant see this happening during a normal stage race,where the sprinters are isolated 50K from home,it was such an odd race to watch.A normal stage profile through rolling scenery would have been very different IMO.

cornoyemade

'It seems like most teams are happy not to win as long as we don't win,' Cavendish

Wanker, it looks like these guys were really trying hard to win… in fact, they finished in the break, while you sucked wheels all day long.

Kazakhstan
Colombia
Norway
United States of America
Uzbekistan
Australia
Belgium
Switzerland
Italy
New Zealand
Netherlands
Denmark
Portugal
Spain
Czech Republic
Ukraine
France
Slovenia
Japan
Russian Federation


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/olympi ... z21wSlE5JE

nevman

And another thing-boy am I cross tonight,if there had been a normal stage race we could have had proper helicopter coverage without the tree cover,and seen the break better.No doubt Box Hill was a good idea (9x FFS) but didnt LOCOG or whoever realise it was a bit `different` and therefore likely to produce an odd outcome?

DeadCalm

avoidingmyphd wrote:

That was the worst television coverage of a race I have ever seen.

the Inner Ring ‏@inrng
OBS company behind broadcast is a cosy company with monopoly TV rights granted by IOC. Directors include ex-UCI boss Hein Verbruggen.

cornoyemade

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/olympi ... z21wSlE5JE

“It's bitterly disappointing. There's 70 guys in our group at the finish, I don't understand why there's (only) three guys riding. It doesn't make sense.
'No-one wants to help us. The Australians sit there.” cavendish

only THREE guys riding? True, cavy was in his pram all day long! Is he the only big baby out of the 70 that should sit and wait for the last 200m? Maybe if GB had FIVE guys riding all day (six including Bernnie), the break would have been caught. Has Cavy forgotten the shit he piled on Greiple over the years. Dpes he really think Germany would join the GB train? Such a wanker!

iainf72

Vino has announced he's retiring after the TT on Wednesday. Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out Vino.

Why did the Australians not work Mark? Gee, could it be because they had someone up the road. Just like every other team with a sprinter except Germany.

IanLD

Nice to see your balanced constructive points again cornoy. I'd actually forgotten about your trolling but you have decided to give us your words of wisdom again. I think one of the terms your own terms is quite apt for you...

tailwindhome

Can someone explain why Sagan was the only Slovakian in the race?

I would have thought they would have enough 'points' or whatever to put in a bigger team.

carl_p

nevman wrote:

And another thing-boy am I cross tonight,if there had been a normal stage race we could have had proper helicopter coverage without the tree cover,and seen the break better.No doubt Box Hill was a good idea (9x FFS) but didnt LOCOG or whoever realise it was a bit `different` and therefore likely to produce an odd outcome?

The coverage as pretty poor, along with some odd slow mo's featuring the riders's shoes. 9 laps of Box Hill got a bit monotonous with the same old shots I must admit.

vs

cornoyemade wrote:

'It seems like most teams are happy not to win as long as we don't win,' Cavendish

Wanker, it looks like these guys were really trying hard to win… in fact, they finished in the break, while you sucked wheels all day long.

Kazakhstan
Colombia
Norway
United States of America
Uzbekistan
Australia
Belgium
Switzerland
Italy
New Zealand
Netherlands
Denmark
Portugal
Spain
Czech Republic
Ukraine
France
Slovenia
Japan
Russian Federation

+1

I think it's great. Why should someone who sits on wheels, does no work at all until the last 100m? win an Olympic Gold medal (or be World Champion for that matter)

BRAVO!!!

kanto

cornoyemade wrote:

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/olympi ... z21wSlE5JE

“It's bitterly disappointing. There's 70 guys in our group at the finish, I don't understand why there's (only) three guys riding. It doesn't make sense.
'No-one wants to help us. The Australians sit there.” cavendish

only THREE guys riding? True, cavy was in his pram all day long! Is he the only big baby out of the 70 that should sit and wait for the last 200m? Maybe if GB had FIVE guys riding all day (six including Bernnie), the break would have been caught. Has Cavy forgotten the shoot he piled on Greiple over the years. Dpes he really think Germany would join the GB train? Such a wanker!

Good result for cycling when someone like Cavendish doesn't win the race!

Bring on the classic season where we can see less and less of Cavendish and his uni-dimensional wheel-sucking style.

RichN95.

iainf72 wrote:

Why did the Australians not work Mark? Gee, could it be because they had someone up the road. Just like every other team with a sprinter except Germany.

But this is the daft old cliche of cycling tactics - if you have a man in the break you don't chase ever. With 40k to go and the gap about 1 minute is your best bet fr a medal:
a) the third or fourth best sprinter from a bunch sprint
b) a 39 year old who has been at the front for 200km and has only come in the top 3 in one race in three years?

If this is 'poker on wheels' then you should play your best cards, not your first cards.

(To be fair to O'Grady, 6th was better than could be expected really - but once the break swelled to 30 he ceased to be the most credible medal option for Australia)

cornoyemade

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/olympi ... z21wT1A1Nv

But we did everything. We can't make EXCUSES (emphasis added). We did everything we said we were going to do and more.” (except win! ha ha)

WELL, I SEE A FEW EXCUSES CROPPING UP . . .

'It seems like most teams are happy not to win as long as we don't win' (hmm, care to name those teams?)

'No-one wants to help us.’ (waa…. It’s the olympics stupid, not the Cavendish games)

“there's (only) three guys riding.” (yes, you were half wheeling)

“The Australians sit there” (I seem to remember that they had a man in the break)

“The four guys who ran all day couldn't do it” (and the fifth man on your team, what was he doing?)

"The Germans came a bit too late”(different jerseys, different tactics wanker).

“The other teams seemed to be more content that they wouldn't win as long as we didn't win.” (yeah, they just showed up for the fun of it)

“We expected teams to come and chase at the end with us.” (again, this is not the Cavendish games, its called the olympics. And why would the teams who had men in the break bother? Thank god this wanker lost)


Bravo Vino!

nevman

Let me guess here-the Womens RR will be a much better `watch` tomorrow without all those laps.

No_Ta_Doctor

RichN95 wrote:

iainf72 wrote:

Why did the Australians not work Mark? Gee, could it be because they had someone up the road. Just like every other team with a sprinter except Germany.

But this is the daft old cliche of cycling tactics - if you have a man in the break you don't chase ever. With 40k to go and the gap about 1 minute is your best bet fr a medal:
a) the third or fourth best sprinter from a bunch sprint
b) a 39 year old who has been at the front for 200km and has only come in the top 3 in one race in three years?

If this is 'poker on wheels' then you should play your best cards, not your first cards.

(To be fair to O'Grady, 6th was better than could be expected really - but once the break swelled to 30 he ceased to be the most credible medal option for Australia)

+1
In a break that size, with that quality the Australians were mad to just leave it to O'Grady when they had Goss to play.

pb21

I dont think it was a tactical reason Cavendish didnt win, he simply wasnt the strongest on the day.

Essentially Cavendish couldnt keep up on the hill reps, so GB eased to his pace, allowing the second peloton to develop up the road.

finchy

RichN95 wrote:

iainf72 wrote:

Why did the Australians not work Mark? Gee, could it be because they had someone up the road. Just like every other team with a sprinter except Germany.

But this is the daft old cliche of cycling tactics - if you have a man in the break you don't chase ever. With 40k to go and the gap about 1 minute is your best bet fr a medal:
a) the third or fourth best sprinter from a bunch sprint
b) a 39 year old who has been at the front for 200km and has only come in the top 3 in one race in three years?

If this is 'poker on wheels' then you should play your best cards, not your first cards.

(To be fair to O'Grady, 6th was better than could be expected really - but once the break swelled to 30 he ceased to be the most credible medal option for Australia)

I was going to say that, although I'd put Greipel at number 2 in the bunch sprint now.

iainf72

Here's my theory. On the last couple of laps on Box Hill, Cavendish was going quite well, but not well enough he could have dealt with an increase of pace. So the team kept it "steady". But when 30 people managed to get up the road, including multiple people from same team who were prepared to work, it was game over.

vs

pb21 wrote:

I dont think it was a tactical reason Cavendish didnt win, he simply wasnt the strongest on the day.

Essentially Cavendish couldnt keep up on the hill reps, so GB eased to his pace, allowing the second peloton to develop up the road.

that is spot on. end of story.

RichN95.

johnfinch wrote:

I was going to say that, although I'd put Greipel at number 2 in the bunch sprint now.

So would I. I said Goss was third or fourth (at worst 5th).

I think if there had been race radios, Oz may have chased, but they probably didn't know what was going on up front.

Will.C

Not really, Millar reporting cav had the legs to go with the break but in his team he trusted. From where I was standing, lat corner on the zig zags, a hella strong break shot off from the top, A third of the peleton? With only GB chasing, after controlling it for 170km already and a little help from a German or Bernie, I think they did a flawless job but had a seriously hard task bringing that back all things considered. Gold had Fabus name on it until he fell asleep on that corner.

Edit:
@pb21

alihisgreat

iainf72 wrote:

Here's my theory. On the last couple of laps on Box Hill, Cavendish was going quite well, but not well enough he could have dealt with an increase of pace. So the team kept it "steady". But when 30 people managed to get up the road, including multiple people from same team who were prepared to work, it was game over.

That's almost certainly what happened... its a shame that GB stuck to the game plan... would have been good (in hindsight) to see them leave cav so at least one of them was in contention for a medal.. making the finish more exciting.

I had a good day on Box Hill though and got a great picture of Gilbert's race face to top it off (i'll upload it later when I can get my computer)

iainf72

http://www.cyclesportmag.com/news-and-c ... ream-team/

Fairly good analysis from Tedward.

carl_p

iainf72 wrote:

Here's my theory. On the last couple of laps on Box Hill, Cavendish was going quite well, but not well enough he could have dealt with an increase of pace. So the team kept it "steady". But when 30 people managed to get up the road, including multiple people from same team who were prepared to work, it was game over.

Mine is that Team GB should never have allowed a 2 min break to form before Box Hill as they would never been able to respond to another attack whilst doing hill reps and not dropping Cav. They actually almost got away with it until the break eventually increased to 30 odd and then as you say it was game over.

finchy

RichN95 wrote:

johnfinch wrote:

I was going to say that, although I'd put Greipel at number 2 in the bunch sprint now.

So would I. I said Goss was third or fourth (at worst 5th).

I think if there had been race radios, Oz may have chased, but they probably didn't know what was going on up front.

My apologies. Will read posts more carefully in the future.

No_Ta_Doctor

pb21 wrote:

I dont think it was a tactical reason Cavendish didnt win, he simply wasnt the strongest on the day.

Essentially Cavendish couldnt keep up on the hill reps, so GB eased to his pace, allowing the second peloton to develop up the road.

Don't agree there.

At one point the break had 5 or 6 minutes, by the end of the laps it was down to 2 or 3.

If anything GB closed too early, allowing riders to bridge more easily and the break to grow.

thomthom

Decent race! Fucking delighted that Vino won this. Well deserved. Not sure if I could have survived yet another Sky-leading-the-peloton-in-high-pace-until-finish-stage.

knedlicky

Rick Chasey wrote:

Hopefully the bandwagon fans will now appreciate the difference between one day racing and the tour.

Although your point is valid, apart from whether the difference is realised by occasional fans, it also wasn’t quite a one-day race because at such, team discipline still rules, more than in a race with national teams. National teams are often just an assembly of riders thrown together for the day, where in some cases each just wants to do their own thing (think Nicole Cooke, but it also applies to some males too).
In that way, today’s race was a bit like what you sometimes find happens at amateur level – a degree of unity within teams but a degree of unpredictability too. Not a bad thing!

mfin wrote:

GB tactics were flawed but then again … too few in the team to control the race and no radios to make this happen.

As I mentioned in another thread, two of Cyrille Guimard’s suggestions how to improve the Tour de France (with which I agree but I'm not Prud'homme) were to reduce team size to 7 riders and to eliminate radios.
I think today validated Guimard's suggestions.

TMR

knedlicky wrote:

I think today validated Guimard's suggestions.

I disagree. Racing without radios is utterly retarded and I hope that never happens. The team size is fine as it is.

RichN95.

knedlicky wrote:

As I mentioned in another thread, two of Cyrille Guimard’s suggestions how to improve the Tour de France (with which I agree but I'm not Prud'homme) were to reduce team size to 7 riders and to eliminate radios.
I think today validated Guimard's suggestions.

It's not that simple. You also have to acknowledge that the different sized teams make an impact too. For example, if Sagan had had a few team mates (like the Velits bros) they probably would have chased. Kazakhstan and Colombia would have played their cards differently with five riders instead of two. Imagine if Sky and Liquigas were allowed nine riders at the Tour, but FdJ and Europcar only got three.