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.

I'll be using that analogy whenever someone says that Cav lost. Good one, Clive!

But that's a bloke mouse.

Details, details. Don't care. WANT.

sorry if this has been mentioned before.

when elizabeth armitstead was presented with her flowers directly after the silver medal, the man doing it so to speak said to her

"not bad for a girl who two years ago didnt even own a bike yet"

at least this is what i thought i heard him say, can anybody back me up on this?

sorry if i missed something.

Maybe a reference to 'road bike' rather than just bicycle.

She might not actually own a bike. Surely they're all sponsored?

It was UCI President Pat McQuaid, so probably something nonsensical

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/19037791#asset - 02:15

Yesterday's was epic agreed.just putting the hammer down despite conditions.WELL impressed.this brief few weeks t.v bike action really showing out.

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.

Not many people needed to help, even fewer had the resources to do so; the blame falls squarely on the Germans.

And the Australians, but maybe they think 5th is a good result.

And the Australians, but maybe they think 5th is a good result.

The Australians got the result they wanted and raced for.

Cav didn't win.

And the Australians, but maybe they think 6th is a good result.

It's a better result than 27th. Stuey was always a long shot to get a medal from that group, but at least he had a chance and you never know how the finale is going to play out - there's a certain lottery element to where you are in the line when the definitive move goes, and he had as much chance as anybody else if two or three went off the front of the group in the last couple of kilometres. Against Greipel, Boonen, Cavendish, Farrar and Sagan, was Goss going to do any better if it had come back together?

Can anyone read German? If they can, what has been the German cycling press' reaction to the German tactics?

Following Bourgain's performance in the road race, do we think Robert Forstemann will go a bit further in the MTB XC, given that he has over a week to recover from the team sprint? Would be quite funny if he just nailed it off the line for the first minute, like riding a kilo :-)

I predict massive wheelspin off the line, like a top fuel dragster warming the tyres.

sorry if this has been mentioned before.

when elizabeth armitstead was presented with her flowers directly after the silver medal, the man doing it so to speak said to her

"not bad for a girl who two years ago didnt even own a bike yet"

at least this is what i thought i heard him say, can anybody back me up on this?

sorry if i missed something.

I think that was (or should have been) "a few" rather than "two". Huw Porter mentioned during the breakaway that she didn't own a bike until she was 16. This was reiterated in today's papers but the story seems to vary from not owning a bike at all, to never having raced one...

Either way, fantastic work from LA and EP.

I'll be using that analogy whenever someone says that Cav lost. Good one, Clive!

100 other rides lost too. Vino 'won'.

A better analogy would be 5 players sat in front of their own goal for every match against every other nations 5 players. Other nations use a variety of different tactics and eventually score goal against one-trick Team GB.

Not many people needed to help, even fewer had the resources to do so; the blame falls squarely on the any team that didn't do something to try and put their riders in a position to win.

Team GB, Germany, etc.

And the Australians, but maybe they think 5th is a good result.

Rubbish. Australia had O'Grady in the break. They at least made the effort to get a rider on their team in a position where a win was possible, unlike Germany and GB.

The Australians got the result they wanted and raced for.
Cav didn't win.

We race to win. Stop talking as much shite as Cav.

It's a better result than 27th. Stuey was always a long shot to get a medal from that group, but at least he had a chance and you never know how the finale is going to play out - there's a certain lottery element to where you are in the line when the definitive move goes, and he had as much chance as anybody else if two or three went off the front of the group in the last couple of kilometres. Against Greipel, Boonen, Cavendish, Farrar and Sagan, was Goss going to do any better if it had come back together?

This.

Four dopers in the break, one wins. But it might not have gone that way.

Aren't we all over this? Don't expect any favours, especially if you have been giving it large the week before the race.

Such a mix of bikes on the team cars.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/436432/teambikes.jpg

Last comments were an hour ago, so clearly not.