Rio Olympic Track events *Spoilers*

maddog 2

I hate to say it, but to me, it looked intentional what Cav did. He looked to his left TWICE just before and he must have seen the Korean guy. Then he turns across him. I thought this at the time and I still think it now, after watching Joelsim's clip.

This was more than just an accidental touch of wheels. And there wasn't anyone in front of Cav so where's he going? Not to jump on someone's wheel, that's for sure.

Gaviria getting 20 points ... :roll:

Anonymous

bobmcstuff

maddog 2 wrote:

I hate to say it, but to me, it looked intentional what Cav did. He looked to his left TWICE just before and he must have seen the Korean guy. Then he turns across him. I thought this at the time and I still think it now, after watching Joelsim's clip.

This was more than just an accidental touch of wheels. And there wasn't anyone in front of Cav so where's he going? Not to jump on someone's wheel, that's for sure.

Gaviria getting 20 points ... :roll:

Everything looks more intentional in slow motion. It's a well known bias.

RichN95.

maddog 2 wrote:

I hate to say it, but to me, it looked intentional what Cav did. He looked to his left TWICE just before and he must have seen the Korean guy. Then he turns across him. I thought this at the time and I still think it now, after watching Joelsim's clip.

This was more than just an accidental touch of wheels. And there wasn't anyone in front of Cav so where's he going? Not to jump on someone's wheel, that's for sure.

He was dropping down to follow Viviani who was making a move at the bottom (the person he would actually have been looking at).

So if he did it intentionally - what was his motive? To eliminate a rider placed in about 14th place? To allow Gaviria, who had just gained a lap, to have a rest? It would make no sense.

RichN95.

Graeme_S wrote:

Omar Little wrote:

Not sure if accurate but few tweets suggest that Colombia will be lodging an appeal today? Not sure how that works though considering Gaviria wasnt involved in the crash.

Gaviria was in the process of trying to take a lap when the crash happened. He made contact after the crash when the pack had eased up but (I think) before the race was neutralised. I think he was credited with 20 points to begin with, but this was later removed (still during the race). Wouldn't surprise me if this is what the appeal relates to.

Gaviria got his lap

dinyull

I thought all the tinfoil hat wearers congregated in the clinic?

iPete

Slow motion and up close, it looks bad in isolation.

But in context, they were trying to force a break, were they not. Cav put in a turn and rolled up the track on the corner and was watching his rivals before accelerating back down off the corner, likely expecting the Korean to do his turn, instead he also pulled up the track. It was clumsy but an attempt to take out his rival with some domino's? Take off the tin foil hat.

bobmcstuff

iPete wrote:

Slow motion and up close, it looks bad in isolation.

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/ ... 65113.full
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36940475

Showing things in slow motion makes people look guilty.

philwint

Germcevoy wrote:

Cav seems to shoulder check twice then drops into the Korean

https://twitter.com/claudiascore/status ... 20/video/1

Viviani and the French chap looks more accidental. Viviani checking over the opposite shoulder when he crossed lines.
I think Cav is lucky. Would be a silly move if intentional as he puts himself at risk but still stupid.

I've watched that a dozen times in very slow motion. What I see is cav checking behind him at about 3sec. Seeing the Korean just about behind his wheel. Then the Koreana seems to come forward and half wheel also rising up the banking (up to 4sec). At the same time Cav switches his attention to the riders in front and starts his move down. At 5sec they collide.

So I think Cav checked back, saw the move was just about on and executed. In the 1.5 seconds that took to happen the other guy has changed speed/line

Which is pretty much what Viviani said had happened.

Cav should have given the other guy another half a foot of space, but it's not 100% his fault. 70:30 maybe?

Richmond Racer 2

^This

maddog 2

He was dropping down to follow Viviani who was making a move at the bottom (the person he would actually have been looking at).

But Viviani was well behind Cav. He had to be because he was taken out by the Korean's crash. And the if the Korean was behind Cav, then Viviani must have been behind the Korean.

I'm happy to accept the slow-mo comments though. Do we have a clip at racing speed?

ddraver

philwint wrote:

Germcevoy wrote:

Cav seems to shoulder check twice then drops into the Korean

https://twitter.com/claudiascore/status ... 20/video/1

Viviani and the French chap looks more accidental. Viviani checking over the opposite shoulder when he crossed lines.
I think Cav is lucky. Would be a silly move if intentional as he puts himself at risk but still stupid.

I've watched that a dozen times in very slow motion. What I see is cav checking behind him at about 3sec. Seeing the Korean just about behind his wheel. Then the Koreana seems to come forward and half wheel and rising up the banking (up to 4sec). At the same time Cav switches his attention to the riders in front and starts his move down. At 5sec the collide.

So I think Cav checked back, saw the move was just about on and executed. In the 1.5 seconds that took to happen the other guy has changes speed/line

Which is pretty much what Viviani said had happened.

Cav should have given the other guy another half a foot of space, but it's not 100% his fault. 70:30 maybe?

SCREW THAT! BURN HIM!! BURN HIM!!

DeVlaeminck

The more I watch it the more the Korean is partly - admittedly a smaller part - at fault. I think Cav just assumes the guy is going to do what most riders at that level will do and he doesn't - Cav is still at fault but you can see how it happened.

Not sure where the he did it on purpose stuff comes from - he'd have to be a psychopath to deliberately punt one rider into the path of his rival. It's a racing accident - one of many we've seen in the last week this one is just high profile because it's Cav.

ddraver

DeVlaeminck wrote:

Not sure where the he did it on purpose stuff comes from - he'd have to be a psychopath to deliberately punt one rider into the path of his rival.

We used to have a poster that pushed that adgenda very strongly...

Dorset_Boy

Anyone who seriously thinks Cav deliberately played dominos know nothing what so ever about riding a bike, let alone riding on the track. They really are utterly moronic suggestions.
It's not like Prost, Senna and Schumacher driving into their rivals to take them out in F1. A touch of wheels like that on a bike and the front rider has a high chance of going down too.
It was bad riding undoubtedly as Cav has admitted, but deliberate - FFS don't be pathetic.

r0bh

Dorset Boy wrote:

Anyone who seriously thinks Cav deliberately played dominos know nothing what so ever about riding a bike, let alone riding on the track. They really are utterly moronic suggestions.
It's not like Prost, Senna and Schumacher driving into their rivals to take them out in F1. A touch of wheels like that on a bike and the front rider has a high chance of going down too.
It was bad riding undoubtedly as Cav has admitted, but deliberate - FFS don't be pathetic.

^^ This. Can't believe this is even still being debated. Slightly careless riding by Cav but also the Korean rider partly to blame by overlapping wheels underneath Cav when he should have known that the only way Cav was going to move was down. But anyway it was just a standard racing incident on the track and the notion that he did it on purpose is just laughable.

graeme_s-2

RichN95 wrote:

Gaviria got his lap

Ah - thanks for that - I read something last night that said he didn't. Journalist who wrote it must have been confused (and now I can't remember if it was on cycling news, the BBC or the Guardian).

Daz555

3 more golds tonight on the velodrome? Too much to hope for?

Trott seems as much of a certainty to win as Bolt is on any given day - only a race-ending crash will keep her from Gold I'd say. Different class to any other track rider on the planet right now it seems.

Kenny is strong favourite to take the Keirin with usual caveat of it being a complete lottery at times.

Becky James and Katy Marchant - very good chance of repeating the 1-2 we saw in the men's Sprint.

dav1d1

BC marginal gains how to bring down a rider and stay upright

But yes can't believe people are thinking it was on purpose.

Daz555

Germcevoy wrote:

Trott is ridiculously consistent.

She rides the devil better than anyone I've ever seen. She seems to have it all - great awareness and positioning combined with superb top sprint speed AND tons of stamina for longer efforts.

A few years ago I'd have expected it to take 20 years for us to find another British female track rider who could match or surpass Pendleton. Well Trott has surpassed her already - and she is only 24.

N0bodyOfTheGoat

I can't help but feel the scoring system is flawed in the Omnium.

If I understood correctly, the winner of the first five events gets 40 points, with a tapering reduction according to rank.

But then the final event Points Race has a silly amount of points on offer! Surely it should be scored so that if the same rider won every mini-sprint, they get the same maximum of 40 points, perhaps with a bonus of ~10 for lapping the field?

The current system makes a mockery of the first five events and turns final positions into a lottery.

I'm pleased Cav finally got his Olympic medal considering the above, after what happened in previous attempts, but I'm not convinced Cav is really that proud of his Silver.

kingstongraham

Don't worry, I'm sure all the scoring will change again before the next Olympics. It does all feel a bit contrived.

RichN95.

NitrousOxide wrote:

I can't help but feel the scoring system is flawed in the Omnium.

If I understood correctly, the winner of the first five events gets 40 points, with a tapering reduction according to rank.

But then the final event Points Race has a silly amount of points on offer! Surely it should be scored so that if the same rider won every mini-sprint, they get the same maximum of 40 points, perhaps with a bonus of ~10 for lapping the field?

The current system makes a mockery of the first five events and turns final positions into a lottery.

The points gained by the top six scorers in the points race were:

41,40,33,32,29,22...

As opposed to the other events:

40,38,36,34,32,30...

It works out quite similar. (No-one's going to win all the sprints)

Daz555

I guess the desire is to make the points race the "showdown" - a showpiece for the medals. If the other events were pointed more heavily (or the Points race less so) then I guess the points race would often end up being an irrelevance as the strongest rider would often roll up to the final event with an unassailable lead.

We see this in decathlon and heptathlon, where by the time they get to the final event (1500m and 800m respectively) the competition is already over in many cases.

They could change this and turn the omnium into a decathlon-like event but I doubt anyone at UCI wants that.

Pross

It's funny how no-one suggested any of the numerous crashes in the women's kierin were deliberate or advocated anyone being DQd. It's as if some people have an agenda. Viviani didn't have an issue with it and other than the injured Korean he was the person in the world most affected by it.

Richmond Racer 2

Daz555 wrote:

3 more golds tonight on the velodrome? Too much to hope for?

Trott seems as much of a certainty to win as Bolt is on any given day - only a race-ending crash will keep her from Gold I'd say. Different class to any other track rider on the planet right now it seems.

Kenny is strong favourite to take the Keirin with usual caveat of it being a complete lottery at times.

Becky James and Katy Marchant - very good chance of repeating the 1-2 we saw in the men's Sprint.

QF draw for the Brits:

James v Zhong
Marchant v Kruipeckaite

Pross

Are the QFs best of 3? Quite a tough match up for Becky, she's plainly got the pace though so just hoping she gets her tactics right.

mfin

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2016/aug/16/mark-cavendish-olympic-medal-cycling-omnium-rio-2016

mfin

Track coverage starting in a few mins on BBC.

blazing_saddles

Pross wrote:

Are the QFs best of 3? Quite a tough match up for Becky, she's plainly got the pace though so just hoping she gets her tactics right.

I'm already feeling sick.