2012 Olympic Road Race

An analogy for non cyclists.

Imagine five footballers playing at Wembley or another full sized football pitch against a team of 11. A hundred or so players stand on the touch line watching. The eleven go 1-0 up and the five try to claw back an equaliser and then a winning goal. As they do so, player by player, another 11 step off the sidelines and start playing for the other side.

However good the GB team are and however hard they tried, it is little wonder that they did not win.

And on why nobody else was willing to help Team GB and risk a sprint finish. "Helping GB to arrange a sprint finish would be like Haile Gebrselassie being given the choice of distance to race over against Usain Bolt, and choosing 100m" Nobody was stupid enough to give away the tactical advantage.