2012 Olympic Road Race

Team GB, Germany, etc.

Team GB did "something to try and put their riders in a position to win", it just wasn't enough. Germany didn't even try. I can't think of another team who both missed the break and had meaningful resources available to bring it back, yet failed to deploy those resources with any degree of commitment.

Good point but it was too little too late from GB. Millar should've gone with the break.

Millar should've gone with the break.

That was the analysis around our dinner table. It's easy to be wise after the event.

True. But these blokes are full time and paid to analyse and react in races.

The best line ever was Shane Sutton's one about the footballer getting the ball on his left peg "oh no, he's right footed". If the blokes are paid £100k per week to play football they should make damn sure they can kick with both feet.

This applies to adapting tactics to races too. Knowing there are no radios should've made them consider alternative strategies given a few likely scenarios.. unless they really thought they could pull back a large break alone?

That was the analysis around our dinner table. It's easy to be wise after the event.

Known as 'Twenty twenty hindsight' ;)

If Cav wanted to win, maybe he should have covered the break. That would have neutralised it.

Millar said Cav had the legs to go with the break, but choose to stick with his teammates. In hindsight the tactics they used had served them well in the past, but in this case they needed other teams to help, which they didn't. At that point they needed to show flexibility and let Millar and Cav go with the break. I think it shows a certain naivity about one-day races: you can't always use clinical plans and execute them flawlessly, you need Plan B and even Plan C.

Boonen said he saw GB riders going back for water in the last 30k or finale as he put it, and he reckoned it cost them 20secs and any chance of getting the break back.

If Brailsford wants to make a serious tilt at the classics he will have to learn from this.

The best line ever was Shane Sutton's one about the footballer getting the ball on his left peg "oh no, he's right footed". If the blokes are paid £100k per week to play football they should make damn sure they can kick with both feet.

It's not that simple though. You can't just magically decide to play well with the weaker foot, it takes tens of thousands of hours of practice to get the touch and muscle memory required to be able to play well.

Why don't tennis players use both hands so they don't have a (weaker) backhand? Because the investment of time required to get their other hand up to a good standard is best spent on further improving their dominant hand.

Someone who's fucking great with their right foot and vaguely OK (or even vaguely shit) with their left is a better pick for a team that someone who's good (but not great) with both.

Should Wiggins spend his training hours getting better at sprinting at the expense of his climbing? Should Cav spend his training hours doing what's necessary to keep being a good sprinter or should he lose his edge to get a little better in the mountains?

At the top of the pile most people have got a speciality and it is very very rare to get someone who is great at several different disciplines (this is where you get the true greats of the sport).

(As an aside, I taught myself to play tennis with my left hand after breaking my right arm one summer, I'm also both-footed for football/rugby and, if anything, my left foot shot is better as I think about it less than I do when shooting with my right. Still not a pro though...)

The point is Sutton addressed Wiggos weaknesses and then he went and won the Tour.

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?

In a normal race, maybe, but in the Olympics? There's three medal places, and then there's everyone else. If I was Greipel, Boonen or Farrar then that race would tell me everything I needed to know about my team-mates' views of my ability to beat Cavendish. Makes me wonder why you'd pick a team featuring sprinters like those three if you're not going to ride for them.

Belgium didn't need to ride for Boonen because they had Gilbert in the break, USA didn't need to ride for Farrar because Mini-Phinney was in the break. There was no point in either team expending energy on bringing it back, as they would want all their power available to manage a big bunch sprint if it did come back. Particularly for Belgium, if you have somebody of Gilbert's one-day pedigree in a break, you'd probably be trying to stop it from coming back even when your plan B is Tom Boonen. Phinney is no slouch either, it's not like USA had placed a minor domestique in the break as a policeman.

Bringing it back for Farrar? Unlikely.

that said, if you were playing a pure percentage game the best chance of a medal for countries with a top sprinter would be a bunch sprint. Goss was a certain silver for example :)

I think British riders had won far too much for anyone to do them any favours (apart from Eisel). However ze German's tactics were completely inexplicable

Just submitted... Fuck you Bond. Good enough for forum template?:

Complaint title:
Sports Editor David Bond's Interview- M. Cavendish
Complaint description:
Sports Editor David Bond's report on the Men's Road Race was already bad to the point of being factually inaccurate and reflected a clear ignorance of the sport of cycling, but his frankly ridiculous, over-simplistic 'report' was then capped off by approaching an athlete recognised as being the best in his discipline world-wide, asking him what can only be described as a stupid question, then insinuating that it was a result of his personal frailties that Cavendish responded in the manner he did.

For viewers watching, who had already tolerated abysmal coverage of the actual race, to see this from the Sports Editor implies a total ignorance and lack of preparation, and a structural problem within your organisation.

Mr Bond's clear lack of knowledge was bad enough, but to have such a negative, ill-informed perspective on the performance of both Cavendish and the GB team is unforgivable and ill befitting of someone in his position.

I note that Cavendish's later interview with the BBC was far more fulsome and reflected the actual knowledge of the interviewer who could ask questions beyond 'were you tired?' when a team of 4 riders has spent the best part of 250km working to bring back a break of 30+ riders by themselves.

The comments on Mr Bond's blog reflects a unanimous and damning verdict on his skill as a journalist. Should he not have to apologise to Cavendish and the GB team for his remarks, and to the viewers for the quality of journalism?

BBC Response:

"Thanks for contacting us regarding our coverage of the Men’s Cycling Road Race broadcast on 28 July.

We understand you were unhappy with Sports Editor David Bond’s post race interview with Mark Cavendish. We appreciate in your view, his analysis of the race was uninformed and negative.

We forwarded your concerns on this issue to our Head of Sports News and he writes in response:

“We believe the report was balanced as it reflected the enormous recent success of the British cycling team and, as such, the sense of disappointment at the lack of a medal. There was no intention to be discourteous to Mark Cavendish after the race. David asked what we believe was a reasonable question and a decision was taken to broadcast Mark Cavendish’s response so that the audience could make their own judgement.”

In closing he added:

“Clearly David is not a cycling specialist and therefore does not have the same level of expertise in the sport as the BBC’s cycling commentators Simon Brotherton and Hugh Porter. However, this report of the race was intended for a general news audience and we believe it was fair and balanced."

Please be assured we do appreciate your feedback on this issue, and therefore we have registered your complaint on our audience log. This is a daily report of audience feedback that's made available to many BBC staff, including members of the BBC Executive Board, channel controllers and other senior managers.

The audience logs are seen as important documents that can help shape decisions about future programming and content.

Thanks again for taking the time to contact us.

Kind Regards

BBC Complaints

http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints"

BBC >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

“Clearly David is not a cycling specialist and therefore does not have the same level of expertise in the sport as the BBC’s cycling commentators Simon Brotherton and Hugh Porter.

Ha ha.

Has anyone ridden down the 'River' on Box Hill in the wet?
http://londonandsoutheastnt.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/richard-longs-box-hill-river-road.html

First thoughts are it might be incredibly slippery

I checked this thing out yesterday in the wet. Your first thoughts are correct.

It's also made of the same paint that the council uses for the really thickly slathered raised white bits in the middle of roads and shit so it will probably be there forever.