Rio 2016 Olympics

One of the best moments so far was Steve Cram yesterday completely taking over from Gabby Logan because he was so excited about talking to Sophie Hitchon about her hammer throw medal. She so proud and excited as well.

But he doesn't flinch. At all.

I wondered if that was because he has more experience of bikey argy-bargy (that's a technical term) and if you want to not fall over you don't flinch or look round, even if you feel a hit.

I think Cavendish has a massive petulant streak that manifests itself in his ranting about Wiggins to anyone in earshot and making massively dick moves in bunch sprints and, it transpires, on the track.

I don't think he calculated the outcome of his dick move - he wasn't trying to collide with the guy - but he probably knew he was cutting him up and was reckless to the outcome. He knew he'd done something, hence the lack of flinching.

Thankfully it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Definitely a dick cunt move from Cav.

Luckily if it bothers you, just google 'Mark Cavendish crash' and get a bit of a laugh at all the skin the daft prick has lost over the years.

I presume those that are saying 'it couldn't have been intentional' and 'too risky' etc have never tried polo/cycle speedway/cycling games like footdown?

That's certainly how I read it. Stiffened up and looked straight ahead then looked back when he knew he was upright.

Cav is an arse, here's hoping he acknowledges the dick move and makes a proper apology and that Park is ok.

The Korean guy is moving up the track with him, I reckon Cav thought he would stay behind him rather than to his side.

The good news is Cav will give zero fucks about the opinions on the interweb. Zero.

2 key points on #CavTrackCrashGate

1. All the replays that he's being tried by are in slo-mo, which makes everything look exponentialy more pre-meditated. At real speed it looks a whole lot less cunning, also
   
2. re. him not looking back, is there not just a good chance that he felt a barge and just kept riding/racing. They touch all the time, and the crowd noise in there could plausibly drown out the sound of someone going down?
   

I think Cav looks over his shoulder first and sees the Korean drifting up the track. At this point, he also sees a gap to drop into....
On looking again (second look) Cav will have seen the Korean also looking over his LEFT shoulder, which may have been a signal (to Cav) that the Korean was also going to drop down the track too.
It was just a poor decision, made at high speed.
Cav caused the crash yes, but it was no way intended.

Point one very legit:

https://www.theguardian.com/law/shortcuts/2016/aug/02/how-slow-motion-video-footage-misleads-juries

Apparently the columbian delegation are filing a protest with a plead to disqualify Cavendish.
It's a bit too obvious that they just see an opportunity to get Gaviria on the podium though.

#Cavgate

More catchy.

After warming to him at this year's tour the angry Manx reminds me why I dislike him. Did anyone else hear him saying something along the lines of “they’d [the audience] would be whooping if it [I] was Wiggins” as the cameras cut to his interview with Jill?

True that but the colour of his medal will bug him long after everyone's stopped talking about it.

Amazed that people are just discovering Cav is a bit chippy.

Also, anyone who thinks the crash was deliberate instead of a momentary lapse in concentration needs their heads checked.

What I think is, Cav only entered the Omnium because he'd been told Wiggins would be in it and he planned all along to knock him off. When he found out he'd been tricked he was so annoyed he decided to knock off the Korean guy because he's also a massive racist. His shoes are made of baby seal skin by baby seals, that's how sick he is. It's also a fact that he made the diving pool water turn green by pissing in it all night long just to get at Tom Daley because Cav is also a rampant homophobe. There's literally no end to his wickedness.
More to the point, what has he ever really achieved on a bike?

The fact he is so salty makes him the rider and winner he is. He'll worry about the opinions of his fellow riders, who he had already apologised too, and neither O'Shea or Viviani have complained, not the Twitter hordes who are sharpening staves

he made the diving pool water turn green by pissing in it all night long

What has he been eating to make it turn green though?

Can we assume baby seal foie gras?

The bastard! He probably had a hand in making Louis Smith cry as well

Another 4 TdF stage wins and he's the greatest again....
#cav4life

I would like to see the whole race in real time before making a judgement. And after that, the judgement I make will neither affect the outcome nor the opinions of others. Having made that judgement I will be free to dilly dally my way seesawing as long as I like, until a more interesting controversy may arise.

Apparently the columbian delegation are filing a protest with a plead to disqualify Cavendish.

Ha, Gaviria caused a crash in the omnium points race at the World Championships this year (which he won) and was only given a warning....

In non cycling news, this is amazing:

non-slo-mo replay here: https://twitter.com/CyclingHubTV/status/765298647554752513

#Cavgate they're both to blame.

Looking at the frottage on iplayer.

Korean rider was behind, looks over his shoulder, picks up the pace to move up the track. He deviates from the blue line, turning up the track and by the time of the collision is a whole wheel overlapped. Cav looks over his shoulder, sees the rider is behind (but not overlapping), looks forward and moves down the track onto blue line.

People say about the flinching and the non-reaction, but he takes a hand from the handlebars to balance or acknowledge something immediately after, and besides as said upthread he's been riding big races and bunch sprints, he'll be used to people clashing wheels and staying upright. He's also an aggressive rider - anyone within a bike length of him should be thinking "wildcard" and not look over their shoulder whilst accelerating.

I can see where the issue comes, because he looks over his shoulder twice: once it's clear, and a second time it's not, but he's already committed as he looks a second time.

If he had tried to correct himself seeing the rider on the second glance, he would have slipped off, or come alongside the rider and both gone down à la every other crash we've seen in the Olympics so far.

Last pondering, isn't the first rule of track riding/racing, "if someone looks over their shoulder, they're gonna make a move"?

Edit: Watching @peter_v 's linked gif it's even more clear that the Korean bottles it and changes direction. If he had stayed on Cav's wheel he would have stayed up-track, Cav would have shot down and gained an extra bike length.