heywoodu

2012 and 2016, although the fields were so small there (18 riders, including the continental quota riders) it might not be a great comparison. In 2016 Viviani and Cavendish were 2nd and 3rd in the flying lap and Gaviria, oddly, only 10th. In the 1km time trial Viviani, Gaviria and Cavendish were 3rd, 4th and 6th. Then again, Cavendish and Viviani were 2nd and 3rd in the individual pursuit, so hard to compare But oh my, what a joy that true omnium was (other than Cavendish not only getting away with this shit, but the victim actually being punished if I'm not mistaken). Individual pursuit, flying laps....awesome, that was a track cycling allround event as it should be.

Not exactly sure. Not sure a good road sprinter would do a kilometer from a standing start in under a minute With the massive advantage a track sprinter would gain in the first 100-300 meters and the extra speed a road sprinter would have later, the tipping point might be anywhere between 300 and 1000 meters, entirely depending on which two riders are involved. Taking the Dutch as example: Roy van den Berg would outsprint anyone for 100 meters, but definitely be caught within 500 meters

Short answer Straight sprint from a standing start and the finish line 200 meters away: probably a track sprinter destroys the road sprinter. Straight sprint after a 200km ride: road sprinter destroys the track sprinter

They have that in the Nation's Cup as well: first two events in the first session of the day, the other two events in the later session of the day.

Generally road sprinters are significantly better at straight sprints (assuming you mean on the road), but that might also be because road racing is a way, way, way bigger sport and so the field is a lot more competitive in general. Other than that, it's just entirely different: a massive explosion of 10-20 seconds like in the individual sprint or keirin vs a bunch sprint on the road after several hours of riding. Road sprinters are still endurance athletes really. That being said, quite a lot of the road riders who have success on the track are sprinters. The likes of Mark Cavendish or Elia Viviani have been good on the track, but definitely not in sprint events (think points race, scratch, those kind of things), presumably because of the aforementioned thing of road sprinters still being endurance athletes more than raw sprinters. Either that or time trial specialists (the likes of Filippo Ganna). The only real top track sprinter who was a somewhat decent road sprinter I can think of is Theo Bos, but he definitely didn't become much more than a B-tier road sprinter.

Oh let's not bring London 2012 back in the game, with the absolutely shameful showing of the British team sprint men

No Thiam in the heptahlon due to injury. Which Dutch media has used to come up with 'Historic world title in reach for Vetter after Thiam withdraws', I kid you not. And they actually even mention Hall, but still they thought "hmm, this headline is fine" https://www.nu.nl/sport-overig/6275886/historische-wereldtitel-gloort-voor-vetter-door-afzegging-meerkampicoon-thiam.html

Semi-hilly in Denmark is like this?

Plus especially Carlin simply jumped the start, that race should have been stopped. I'm glad Quintero won, that's awesome and I hope they won't rerun it, but this was yet another fail by the seemingly somewhat incompetent jury in Glasgow

And since a bit more than a month I have clip in pedals for the first time in my life. Last Sunday I had the default experience: my first zero-speed tip-over because of stopping and not unclipping in time Luckily no damage other than a rather large bruise on my behind thanks to the saddle hitting there and a massively bruised ego

Bruna got me a mountainbike (which I mostly use a lot on the road for now) to replace my dad's 20 year old ATB, and I've been cycling a bit since (I've been using that ATB for years, but usually ended up doing a few rides a year and that's about it) The rides that seem slow in terms of distance covered in the mentioned time are probably either actual mountainbiking (which is of course quite slow compared to the road) or me joining Bruna for a rollerski training or a on the way to some lactate test or something, but a large majority are regular road trainings (either alone or, in the case of the longest ones recently, together). Especially the past 7-8 days were tough, three times 100+ kilometer in one week plus a few hours, that's new (and especially today my energy level was close to the bottom with 30km or so still to go) I've got a goal though: in september go for a week with 5 consecutive days, Monday through Friday, of at least 100km on every one of those days. I've already asked for a week off at work, so....

Nobody at UCI has noticed yet that the graphics for the time trial events (the pursuits, the time trials, those things) seem to be broken? They only show the position at every split, not the difference with the current fastest time, as is usual in the Nations Cups (and logical anyway or else....how are you going to spot the trends?).

I wonder when/if the mixed relay will ever be made into a real mixed event. Now it's really nothing but two separate teams per country doing a short team time trial and absolutely zero interaction between the two halves of the 'teams' They don't warm up together (timing would be way off), they don't ride together (impossible since then it'd just be a women's team time trial in essence), they don't even do handovers (too fast, one would assume), they don't finish together..... Basically the two halves of the 'teams' can live entirely separate from each other and only see the other half at the podium ceremony and they don't even need to take evasive action for that weird scenario to happen

'He is forbidden to return to Turkey for 3 years' Oh no

Yep, something road racing should never lose. The only possible exception can be some climbs in Grand Tours, where a bit of a fee to get up there might thin out the number of absolute idiots - those with smoke bombs and stuff and those barely leaving 1,5 meters for the riders on those climbs - a tiny bit (or at least help in the clean-up).

I would like a 100km individual time trial The current trend of fewer and fewer time trial kilometers in Grand Tours is saddening, and the fact we barely ever have a real long time trial anymore (even at major championships) is even worse. That one is for the specialists after all, let's give them a 60+ kilometer battle.

My point is, adding these events doesn't necessarily need to add a whole lot of quota places, yet it never happens. Whereas other sports, like swimming, get away with adding every other similar event. I mean come on, there has even been talk about adding all the 50m's....seriously, come on. I know that's not likely, but the fact it's even been talked about is utterly insane. We have a time trial on the road, yes, which is rather different than the individual pursuit on the track. I know they won't add it, because it's not 'urban' and 'hot' enough, but it is the number one track cycling event in which there is absolutely no hiding behind anything and it's a matter of sheer (will)power and physical prowess, more than in any other event where some form of tactics allow for possibly hiding some weaker moments. It's basically the epitome of track cycling. The omnium....ugh. I want it either gone or made into something that lives up to it's name (which suggests an allround thing). If four events is the maximum, have an individual sprint event, an individual distance event, a mass start distance event and a shorter mass start event (keirin is too risky of course, so maybe keep the elimination race). In other words: 200m flying lap or 500m time trial Individual pursuit Elimination race Points race Something like that. At least it adds a bit more of a sprint and thus allround element. Anyhow, this was about road.... Which is rather easy: a road race and an individual time trial is how it's been for a good while and that's all we need on the road. We don't need any other event there, just....a serious size field.

Legendary climber (road cycling) Federico Bahamontes - winner of the Tour de France and many mountain classifications - has died at the respectable age of 95, the Eagle of Toledo has stopped flying

And because road cycling - the road race, specifically - is one of the most 'open' sports in the entire Olympics, both in terms of accessibility for fans and in terms of number of athletes with a serious chance of playing a big role in the medal fight. Nearly the entire top-25 of the nation's world ranking can either field multiple riders with serious medal potential or one rider who'd be among the big favourites. One could easily field a very high quality and full-sized peloton (and full-sized is 130+ at the very least, not just 90) with the top-25 nations only. Anyhow, cycling in the Olympics is an infuriation matter altogether. Like the total lack of events in track cycling and the program being kept tiny all the time (I mean come on, the individual pursuit, the king of track events next to the individual sprint, isn't even Olympic....), whereas something like swimming has a gazillion semi-similar events and they can just keep adding stuff whenever But still I'll watch everything, because obviously

To be fair, Murray's gold being like a Grand Slam was of course 99% because it was at home and if there's one thing the Brits are good at, it's creating super hypes of their home things But about cycling: yeah, that's more or less what I was saying. The Olympic road race is fine and good, but it's an event with a depleted field (not in terms of top quality, but in terms of the number of quality riders who even can compete, with the ridiculously low number of riders per team). The Olympic TT is basically equal. Riding around all year in the famed rainbow jersey, that's probably going to top riding around with no special jersey at all (possibly a golden bike if you're into that kind of slightly tacky stuff), even though of course once you're on the start line as a potential medal candidate, you want that gold medal at the Olympics as well. Another reason why the TT is more equal: the TT world champion can only ride in his rainbow jersey a few times anyway, whereas the road world champion can shine in his jersey all year long in all the big and small races we cycling fans watch every single week.

Like I was ever planning on going to Turkey

1992 was barely two years after I was born, that's more of a reason than the pro/amateur thing. It was also barely two years before I started watching cycling, I'd say I've definitely seen all the Olympic road races since 2000 or so, but even right now I'd have to very seriously dig in my memory to name the past two or three Olympic champions, and one of them is only memorable because he bought his gold medal in a bit too obvious manner

It's not about nationality, as sports in general shouldn't be, why I don't like it. I don't like it as a road cycling fan, since the Olympic road race will have a very depleted field of starters because of these things. A field with a bunch of top riders, a bunch of riders who are there mostly to show themselves on TV for a bit in the early attack, and not really anything in between. Keep in mind that, unlike in most other sports, road racing definitely doesn't have a single-digit number of realistic winners, one could easily come up with 100 riders who would all not be super sensational winners. Team support is not even that much of a thing in world championships anyway. A little, of course, and some teams more than others, but for example Evenepoel is definitely not going to be happy to see Van Aert break away (and Van Aert was just chasing after Evenepoel even)

それは家に帰ってきます

Too bad The Nigerian keeper was so close all the time.....at least three of the English penalties were schoolbook examples of how to take a penalty, hard and straight into the high corner