Olympics.
Last Post 08/08/2021 08:42 PM by Frederick Jones. 41 Replies.
Author Messages
mondonico

Posts:158

--
07/22/2021 05:42 PM
My choices for winning in road race. Gold. Pogacar. He just wants to win every race he enters. Silver. WvA. Just to much climbing Bronze. Valverde. Don't know his secret is but it's working
Orange Crush

Posts:4499

--
07/22/2021 06:48 PM
For WVA he’s either of podium because climb at 40 to go is too hard or he wins it. I don’t see a middle ground of a lesser spot on podium. If he makes it over that steep climb it’s his to lose the run in to finish is perfect for him.

That’s my only prediction.

The whole event seems like a gong show of covid positives and premature abandons. Cycling seems to have been spared so far but plane Dumoulin was on had three people in isolation now.
longslowdistance

Posts:2881

--
07/23/2021 09:31 PM
Men’s RR has started! Was just checking for tv coverage before nodding off here us east coast. Should be a great race but alas will run very late, too late for me. Maybe not too early for Western Europe to enjoy the finale ? Respect the predictions by fellow forumites . My 2 cents is a Tour finisher will be too tired. I may eat this prediction for breakfast tomorrow, or not. Great chance for redemption by Roglic.
Orange Crush

Posts:4499

--
07/23/2021 09:37 PM
It should be about 4 am in Western Europe now will finish early morning for them.

Should finish 10 pm west coast time here but no functioning TV at moment.
longslowdistance

Posts:2881

--
07/23/2021 09:40 PM
Peacock has it.
Orange Crush

Posts:4499

--
07/23/2021 10:30 PM
Sounds like current lead group contains: Nic Dlamini (Zuid-Afriki), Michael Kurkle (Tsjechië), Polychronis Tzortzakis (Griekenland), Juraj Sagan (Slowakije), Eduard Grosu (Roemenië), Orluis Aular (Venezuela), Elchin Asadjov (Azerbeidjan) en Paul Daumont (Burkina Faso).

Early action lol. Still many hours to go and almost bedtime.
Dale

Posts:1767

--
07/24/2021 06:13 AM
Great finish.

The post race NBC commentators… painful!
“145 miles. How do the go to the bathroom?”
“Carapaz fresh off wining the Tour de France… no, (world salad here).”

I get that someone might be curious about the toilet habits of pro riders but that was just idiotic.
longslowdistance

Posts:2881

--
07/24/2021 07:43 AM
Some pretty good predictions here (not mine). Peacock will have the replay available beginning tomorrow 6am EDT.
79pmooney

Posts:3178

--
07/24/2021 09:41 AM
I saw the Sky/Ineos connection in force here and not for the good. Yes, Carapaz won and Kiatkowski did some real work, but the Great Britain part? GB had 4 riders I believe. Two crashed early in a 4 rider pileup. Geoghegan Hart and Thomas. Thomas dropped out later. I won't say that the GB riders caused the crash; I didn't see it but I was taught to always be aware of the riders around me and to put myself someplace else if here or the riders around me seemed shaky. Of course, for Ineos, this brings up a fundamental conflict. Their teammates are likely the most shaky!

When is Ineos going to hire that riding coach who will preach the mantra - you cannot win unless you finish. And to finish, keep the rubber down, shiny side up!
79pmooney

Posts:3178

--
07/24/2021 09:46 AM
And after the above rant - good job by Carapaz! Well earned gold.
Dale

Posts:1767

--
07/25/2021 09:59 AM
The women's race underscored the fact that racers don't seem to be as tactically savvy as they once were- too much reliance on someone screaming in their ear.
eurochien

Posts:163

--
07/25/2021 10:43 AM
Posted By Dale Dale on 07/25/2021 09:59 AM
The women's race underscored the fact that racers don't seem to be as tactically savvy as they once were- too much reliance on someone screaming in their ear.


I agree, and I wish racing was still done this way, without the ear pieces, the "communication" from team directors and the technology. It reminds me of the Sydney Olympics where Hincapie told Armstrong the break was back when in fact Vinokourov, Ulrich and Klöden were up the road.
79pmooney

Posts:3178

--
07/25/2021 12:35 PM
The women's race! Great ride by Austrian Anna Kiesenhofer. But the Dutch - failure to count heads. Apparently Vos was the only one aware that Kiesenhofer was still away and she didn't mention this to her teammates, probably assuming they knew also. Vos was also doing WB duty. As the designated domestique, it wasn't her job to be counting the heads coming back from the break.

I find it fun to see the gold go to a true amateur in the spirit of the Olympics I grew up knowing.
longslowdistance

Posts:2881

--
07/25/2021 02:13 PM
Quite a story.
Orange Crush

Posts:4499

--
07/25/2021 07:53 PM
Major screwup not just by Dutch women but also organizers. Apparently the other Dutch women were going by gap shown on board which was gap to chase not leader. Only Vos checked in w coach on final pass of finish which is the old school way that perhaps only she is properly attuned to.
longslowdistance

Posts:2881

--
07/26/2021 09:32 PM
Cycling news reports that in the next Olympics the women’s RR field will be increased to 90 and the men’s will be reduced to 90.
Hmmmm
Orange Crush

Posts:4499

--
07/28/2021 10:56 AM
Great comeback from Roglic. I was wondering why he did so poorly in RR but apparently his injury was still affecting him right from riding from hotel to start line. Which begs question of Vuelta.

Nice comeback by Dumoulin as well, you can tell the Olympics are special to him. And if Dennis makes his advertised move to JV, all three podium spots will have been from them. Dumoulin meanwhile will be continuing to race but according to his own plan/program, which I don't think will involve GTs.

Van Vleuten also had good redemption from RR as well as from her Rio crash. Finally gold.
Cosmic Kid

Posts:4209

--
07/28/2021 02:22 PM
Pretty surprised Ganna didn't medal....course was probably too tough for him to win on, but thought a medal would have been a lock.
Just say "NO!" to WCP!!!!
Orange Crush

Posts:4499

--
07/28/2021 03:48 PM
Ganna scorched last year but this year has seemed pretty hit and miss. And yeah, tough course, some proper climbing.
longslowdistance

Posts:2881

--
07/28/2021 08:34 PM
I previously incorrectly speculated that post-Tour fatigue would affect the RR, which it didn't.
But Tour plus hard hot humid RR surely affected the TT.
Speculating some more: if Brandon McNulty had the same form for the TT he had for the RR, (and skipped the RR), could he have medaled?
Orange Crush

Posts:4499

--
07/28/2021 08:45 PM
Posted By Orange Crush on 07/28/2021 03:48 PM
Ganna scorched last year but this year has seemed pretty hit and miss. And yeah, tough course, some proper climbing.


Also just remembered he is doing track pursuit at Olympics. There was some speculation whether dual focus would affect road TT on hilly course. Perhaps it did and maybe same for Dygert. LSD agreed that Tour affected TT. Those guys carried form in RR but TT was one race too many as van Aert put it. The TTers cannot skip RR though, participation is mandatory although you can softpedal or exit early of course. Or maybe you can skip it but country loses a spot in RR.
longslowdistance

Posts:2881

--
07/29/2021 07:08 AM
I previously incorrectly speculated that post-Tour fatigue would affect the RR, which it didn't.
But Tour plus hard hot humid RR surely affected the TT.
Speculating some more: if Brandon McNulty had the same form for the TT he had for the RR, (and skipped the RR), could he have medaled?
79pmooney

Posts:3178

--
08/01/2021 11:18 AM
Conner Fields' brain injury in the BMX - gives me the chills. Way too close to home. I couldn't do more than scan the CN article. Helmeted head hits pavement. Quick trip to one of that city's best. CT scan. Physical brain injury.

Been there. Only difference - when I did it the scanners had a vowel (probably to cover the much bigger radiation dose they had to give me). CAT scanner. Sounds like he didn't hit as hard as I did but that may be the benefit of a better collapsing helmet.

He has no idea yet what this could mean for him. Mine was the third biggest event of my life. (Birth, that and the second biggest hasn't happened yet.) Only in recent years has my early days begun to belong to me; not be just a story someone else lived and that I read about. I still run into situations that bring back entire chapters of my life that were completely buried until that trigger happened. (That night in bed I will be flooded with memories that for 44 years didn't exist.)

I wish him good support (and perhaps a real friend who will tell him what my best friend told me; that friends and family were not going to understand, that this would be far harder than I could possibly imagine and that she knew I would make it; she'd been through a very different but just as serious an accident.)
longslowdistance

Posts:2881

--
08/01/2021 06:46 PM
I hope he enjoys a fast and complete recovery. Tangent: impressive to me that BMX has grown so much that it's an olympic sport. It's easy to semi-dismiss it - the motocross racing it's derived from is less contrived, requires far more creativity, and top motocross racers are very fit, top notch athletes. But here BMX is on the big stage, on the same level as rhythmic gymnastics, half court basketball, and fat folks shooting guns and arrows and riding horses.
79pmooney

Posts:3178

--
08/02/2021 10:06 AM
Fluid dynamics! The Danish pursuit team has been spotted with kinesiology tape strips down the front of their shins, clearly placed to trip the laminar flow to turbulent. The latest controversy.

For the past 45 years I've wondered why bike racers don't simple shave their legs in a Mohawk style with an unshaven or bristle strip down the front. (After all, shaving started as injury minimizer/clean-up facilitator and how often do we get road rash on our shins?)

Tripping the fluid flow to turbulent is not a new idea at all. I went to school for naval architecture in the early '70s. They'd been gluing sand to the first inches of ship models for towing tank testing for 70 years when I got there. The bible of aircraft wing design when I was there, "Theory of Wind Sections" by Abbott and Von Doenhoff talks about laminar flow peeling off wing sections early and and forming large turbulent wake so that despite the far lower laminar flow surface drag while it is attached, the net sum is far worse than if all the flow is turbulent. (There are wing sections designed to maintain laminar flow for most of the sections length that do best and where you go out of your way to make the front very smooth but we humans are far, far from that ideal. Maybe some birds, fish or whales/dolphins.)

When I've mentioned this to fellow cyclists, I've always been laughed at. Now I could start a trend if only I hadn't barked my shins so many times I'd have trouble growing sufficient turbulence trippers. It is time to shave 'em so I might give it a try but I doubt either the wind or adoring masses will notice.
79pmooney

Posts:3178

--
08/02/2021 10:37 AM
And another broken CF stem/handlebar. A high profile face plant. (The Aussie team pursuit. Good thing is that he was on the back at the time. Got up and did the re-ride a half hour later.)
Dale

Posts:1767

--
08/02/2021 02:00 PM
Printed Ti, not carbon from what I read.
79pmooney

Posts:3178

--
08/02/2021 03:13 PM
So I saw elsewhere. Is there a black finish for ti? Also,what is a base bar?

From CyclingNews:

"For the Team Pursuit, the bike is fitted with an integrated aero cockpit. This cockpit consists of a one-piece carbon fibre base bar complete with an integrated stem, and on top, custom moulded carbon fibre aero extensions are fitted using aero spacers. The break appears to have occurred halfway along the stem area of the integrated base bar, with a clean break at the junction just after the stem area meets the handlebar."

That sure sounds to me like a CF failure. Now there was a lot of talk about a 3d printed ti cover but it seems to me from what I read that it wasn't the failure.
Orange Crush

Posts:4499

--
08/02/2021 04:55 PM
Looking at bike set ups the base bar is the bar extensions that sit below the TT bars. Presumably just used to get up to speed before hitting TT position.

Printed Ti, that’s interesting. An upgrade from stock carbon version it reads like.

https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/australias-snapped-handlebar-3d-printed-since-removed-from-sale-reports-claim/
Orange Crush

Posts:4499

--
08/02/2021 05:05 PM
Btw that kinesiology tape use, marginal gains hahaha. It seems to work. Basically it circumvents the UCI rule on sock height with aero socks supposed giving a 2W advantage.

longslowdistance

Posts:2881

--
08/02/2021 08:48 PM
Any idea what 2 watts means in 4k team pursuit time? At the other end of the aero spectrum, how about a team pursuit or similar requiring a full upright position on classic Dutch commuters? Kinda Monty Python, but would be very telegenic, and ratings drive the Olympics nowadays.
Orange Crush

Posts:4499

--
08/02/2021 09:42 PM
Reads like they’re pushing 400-600 watts depending on position in group. So 2 watts is maybe 0.5% difference. So on a 4 min time maybe about 1 second gain.

Dutch bikes would certainly improve entertainment value.
79pmooney

Posts:3178

--
08/03/2021 10:45 AM
I just read the CyclingNews report on the Danish pursuit team riding into the dropped GB rider. WHat a mess! (And yes, Dutch bikes would have helped a lot here! Fix gear Dutch bikes. )

What I don't understand is that there doesn't seem to be a clear "rules of the road" that applies here. In other forms of track racing, the rules are well established. I thought that in team pursuit the third rider is timed. A dropped fourth rider would than be basically out of the race and I would expect that he would be required to pull up track just so this never happens. The leader of the other team should never have to be looking for a slow moving solo rider. (Except for the rare "catch", this is TTT. On a velodrome; no potholes, pavement cracks or stray animals. Perfectly accurate painted lines to follow.)

Now, Olympic and UCI track rules have been changing at a furious rate for a sport older than the dinosaurs. (They completely emasculated the Keirin. Removing the standing start and the full contact fight for the motorpace wheel. As part of that full contact chess game, there were riders who stayed out of it to make their move from last place and high on the banking and were very good at it.)

I guess I should buy a TV, live jazz musician's hours and watch this stuff. But nah, I'll stick to my daytime routine and now go out to my patio to lay a few more tiles. Edit: and sadly, I can no longer ride two miles to the Alpenrose Velodrome and watch racing with an announcer who knew all the race rules and all the riders.  In a couple of years, it will be a new housing development.

Cosmic Kid

Posts:4209

--
08/03/2021 12:41 PM
I thought that in team pursuit the third rider is timed. A dropped fourth rider would than be basically out of the race and I would expect that he would be required to pull up track just so this never happens


According to VN, he was the third rider, not the fourth so he needed to finish.
Just say "NO!" to WCP!!!!
longslowdistance

Posts:2881

--
08/03/2021 08:13 PM
New track event: Team Demolition Derby.
This is not a new event on the road, as demonstrated by the first week of the Tour this year.
79pmooney

Posts:3178

--
08/03/2021 10:31 PM
Posted By Cosmic Kid on 08/03/2021 12:41 PM
I thought that in team pursuit the third rider is timed. A dropped fourth rider would than be basically out of the race and I would expect that he would be required to pull up track just so this never happens


According to VN, he was the third rider, not the fourth so he needed to finish.

Third rider.  OK, that makes sense.  (Doesn't say much for the GB pursuit team but I seem to recall their ace pro road team doing not all that much better when asked to do the TTT in 3 week tours. )
79pmooney

Posts:3178

--
08/03/2021 10:37 PM
lsd, the new initials we have to learn: TDD. Sadly, the bikes they ride are really poor for that event. Heck, there was that Aussie bike that couldn't make the finish with no competition.
Orange Crush

Posts:4499

--
08/07/2021 08:22 AM
Posted By Orange Crush on 08/02/2021 09:42 PM
Reads like they’re pushing 400-600 watts depending on position in group. So 2 watts is maybe 0.5% difference. So on a 4 min time maybe about 1 second gain.

Dutch bikes would certainly improve entertainment value.


With tape Danes might have won gold https://www.cyclingnews.com/features/tokyo-olympics-danes-banned-kinesiology-tape-could-have-swung-team-pursuit-in-italys-favour/
79pmooney

Posts:3178

--
08/07/2021 09:00 PM
OC, Dutch bikes would have made a YUGE difference! That tape would have made very close to zero difference. The Danes, sitting properly upright, would never have piled into the GB rider. And that Aussie bike would have survived a century or two of pursuit starts before the steel stem broke.
79pmooney

Posts:3178

--
08/08/2021 10:49 AM
A fitting justice (this belongs also in the TdF thread). Morkov winning the Madison Gold. The excellent (and selfless) sprinter who we all know could have taken at least a couple of Cavendish's wins last month.

I just saw the brief blurb in CyclingNews. They quoted Morkov saying he and his partner, Lasse Norman had won every Madison they rode together coming into the Olympics. Not really a huge surprise to anyone who's watched Morkov reliably set up sprinters in the chaos of Grand Tour sprint stage finishes.
Orange Crush

Posts:4499

--
08/08/2021 02:18 PM
With Olympics done, teamNL hauled in 36 medals. Average cost of investment per medal 3M Euro with cheapest being athletics (0.8M per medal) and most expensive being field hockey (8M for a single medal). Not quite a fair comparison as field hockey is an entire team getting one medal. Then some sports expended on the order of 5M and got nothing in return. Total investment 110M.

Curious how much other countries pour into the quest for glory.
longslowdistance

Posts:2881

--
08/08/2021 08:42 PM
GB also impressive, at least in terms of medals per capita, especially in track cycling.


---
Active Forums 4.1
NOT LICENSED FOR PRODUCTION USE
www.activemodules.com