Is this who they could find?

solosuperia

I didn't see it, but have just been reading that the experts discussing GB's "failure" in the mens road race on Saturday were:-
Dame Kelly Holmes, John McEnroe and according to my paper a 400 metre runner the contributer had never heard of.
Now I do feel a bit of a charlatan just passing this on, but cycling road race tactics are a mystery to even some of the practictioners.
Couldn't they have got someone with a little bit of knowledge?

Digressing a little, what with the Tour and the Olympic cycling, everytime I go down the village pub I have to deliver a class on tactics and field questions like what is the Omnium.
My favourite question that I'm asked though "What's yours?"

jim453

it was on the highlights show. The 400m runner in question was none other than Michael Johnson, one of the worlds greatest ever athletes.

They were not there to specifically comment on the road race but a selection of sports that day.

I thought they did extremely well to be honest, McEnroe's very pertinent question was 'Surely they knew no-one was going to help them, should they not have had some kind of plan B'. Difficult to argue with.

solosuperia

Fair does..... I guess the reporter had to be controversial in attempt to make an impact.
I concur with your description of Michael Johnson brilliant runner and comes across like a really nice man.
I feel a bit silly now, commenting on something I didn't see.
What kind of sports reporter doesn't know Michael Johnson????

As for Plan "B"..... I feel it would have been very difficult to switch tactics because of the way the race unfolded after halfway.

jim453

Maybe, though the girls set off with two possible plans yesterday.

Jez mon

SoloSuperia wrote:

I didn't see it, but have just been reading that the experts discussing GB's "failure" in the mens road race on Saturday were:-
Dame Kelly Holmes, John McEnroe and according to my paper a 400 metre runner the contributer had never heard of.
Now I do feel a bit of a charlatan just passing this on, but cycling road race tactics are a mystery to even some of the practictioners.
Couldn't they have got someone with a little bit of knowledge?

Digressing a little, what with the Tour and the Olympic cycling, everytime I go down the village pub I have to deliver a class on tactics and field questions like what is the Omnium.
My favourite question that I'm asked though "What's yours?"

Did you read the whole article, I thought the description of Michael Johnson might have been tongue in cheek. Wasn't sure though!!

Fair enough, they were doing a summary of various sports, but why have two athletics experts on a week before the athletics starts?

daviegb

John McEnroe & Michael Johnson appeared real experts compared to David Bond's (BBC sports editor) piece for the 10pm news on Saturday....... especially when he asked Cav 'were you tired because you've just ridden the Tour de France?' Bond also suggested that Froome & Wiggins simply 'couldn't hack the pace of the bunch'.

Surely the BBC had experts available with more knowledge (e.g. Boardman) to explain why Team GB's plan didn't work.

rolf_f

Don't forget they've also got Tanni Grey Thompson who you can't deny is familiar with bicycle wheels

Ginjafro

Well they did eventually find Great Britain Cycling Team Performance Director Dave Brailsford who was quoted as saying:

"We had a game-plan and we stuck to the game-plan," said Brailsford, echoing the words of a dejected Mark Cavendish on the Mall yesterday.

"The guys gave it absolutely everything they had but on the day, this time round, it didn't work. I think we just have to accept that.

"With five guys rather than the normal nine it was always going to be a more difficult challenge, but they rode 90% of the race perfectly, it was just in the final run-in, they couldn't pull it back. That was that.

"From our point of view, if we could have our time again, we'd do exactly the same thing."

So, from his point of view he admits the tactics did not work but would be prepared to do exactly the same thing again! I think I would have prefered to hear something on the lines of, on reflection the plan failed and we need to review and plan for success in the future.

Frank the tank

I saw the programme go out and it was cringeworthy.

The thought passed my mind that the BBC were perhaps so confident of a GB win they thought all we'll need are some "names" to come out with plaudits rather than have to annalise what went wrong. A totally different job alltogether.

P.S. It's time Hugh Porter was put out to grass, he's well past his sell by date.

me-109

If they wanted a sprint finish they should have been prepared to put someone into any break that looked like it might go. Either a real danger man so that other teams chase the break down or someone that can finish off in case it does stay away. To have single plan and stick to it was stupid. On Sunday For the women's race the interview with Brailsford had him talking about being flexible depending on how the race panned out. Go figure!

nickellis

Frank the tank wrote:

P.S. It's time Hugh Porter was put out to grass, he's well past his sell by date.

I especially liked the bit on one of the final assents of Box Hill when he said "Dennis Menchov has put in a massive attack" Just as the caption came up and said it was Kolobnev.

Frank the tank

nickellis wrote:

Frank the tank wrote:

P.S. It's time Hugh Porter was put out to grass, he's well past his sell by date.

I especially liked the bit on one of the final assents of Box Hill when he said "Dennis Menchov has put in a massive attack" Just as the caption came up and said it was Kolobnev.

During the entire race he was unable to "compute" the Italians were not in blue and it seemed to confuse him. At one point he said that "here's an Italian putting in an attack" when it was obvious by the blue shorts it was a Russian.
He was getting names,numbers and teams wrong all the time, Cringetastic. Mind you good old Chris Boardman kept calling team GB "Sky".