Olympic cycling 2024

[Jeremy McCreary]

Spoiler alert: Feel free to discuss results as soon as they become available. Come here only when you're ready to see them.

Men's individual time trials earlier today had an exciting finish, with Belgian Evenepoel (current world champ) taking gold with a compelling lead, Italian Ganna silver, and Belgian van Aert bronze.

And Evenepoel managed to do this with the least goofy-looking helmet! Evenepoel and van Aert were coming off very strong TdF performances just a week before.

Everyone rode with a rear disk wheel as usual, but van Aert alone chose a front disk as well. The quite knowledgeable female announcer kept saying that it was a dicey choice on the rainy flat course through city streets but never said exactly why. No wind to speak of.

Why dicey — especially under those conditions?

I get that a disk wheel has a greater moment of inertia and is therefore harder to accelerate and turn. The riders had to slow more than usual for the wet curves. (Apparently several women who went before the men slid out.) Was slower acceleration out of the curves the issue?

 

[Roamers]

Apparently several women who went before the men slid out.

It was tough watching Taylor Knibb drop it 4 times. Her mechanic was bringing her a new bike and slipped and fell before she received the bike.

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

It was tough watching Taylor Knibb drop it 4 times. Her mechanic was bringing her a new bike and slipped and fell before she received the bike.

Will look for that in the replays tonight. Imagine working and sacrificing all those years, getting on the team, and then getting taken out by something as random as rain in your event.

 

[Chargeride]

I truly believe this is a slow realisation by many potential olympians, the unbelievable grind, missed childhoods, parents entire sparetime ferrying them about.
Such a miniscule percentage make it and one tiny mistake on or off the track can end it all.

My missus carried the torch for 2012, she got more attention for that at her school than a local olympic qualifier who visited for a meet and greet.

The spectacle and the politics is taking over the event.

Funnily enough, she had it out of storage for the kids last day of school.
I keep meaning to work out how to relight it.

 

[Roamers]

Will look for that in the replays tonight. Imagine working and sacrificing all those years, getting on the team, and then getting taken out by something as random as rain in your event.

Her "real" event is the triathlon. Imagine what goes through your head after the 2nd dump: probably out of it now, another bad fall might take me out of my real event. Should I call it quits? She didn't.

 

[Chargeride]

Hopefully the controversy will die down, the rain will stop and us brits can get back to booing the French

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

My missus carried the torch for 2012, she got more attention for that at her school than a local olympic qualifier who visited for a meet and greet.

The spectacle and the politics is taking over the event.

Amen to that. The opening ceremony was a disgrace. Instead of focusing on Olympians and the rich heritage of the Games, it was an orgy of (non-athletic) celebrity and pop culture and silly theatrics. Much more to show how cool and hip France is than to promote the Olympian spirit.

I know a certain amount of that always goes on, but much, much worse this time.

At least we got a new dance form out of it — the chaotic can-can.

 

[Chargeride]

The minions finished it for me, generic hollywood merchandise promoting fluff.

Oh France that is not you.

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

The minions finished it for me, generic hollywood merchandise promoting fluff.

Oh France that is not you.

Tom Pidcock, your man in Paris, took gold in men's cross-country MTB this morning. That after having a puncture early on and playing catch-up thereafter. The Frenchman who took silver after leading much of the race was dejected but managed a smile on the podium.

Very exciting racing in the last 2 laps. Worth watching if you can access the replay.

 

[Chargeride]

The wife watched it and text me, but weve had a terrible local tragedy and no ones talking Olympics at the moment ):

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

The wife watched it and text me, but weve had a terrible local tragedy and no ones talking Olympics at the moment ):

Are you referring to the Southport stabbings north of Liverpool? Horrible! Has a motive been established?

Teenage and 20-something males seem to account for a disprortionate number of these senseless attacks.

 

[Chargeride]

Yes, it seems the assailant was a 17yr old 2nd gen Rwandan immigrant.

No obvious motive, but they are rioting tonight in the town, the PM was heckled by the crowd.

Its quite a tinderbox in the UK over immigration and this isnt helping.

Everyone is becoming very xenophobic.

 

[Chargeride]

Turns out he went to our local school, in fact just a year below my nephew.

The PM has now implemented emergency powers, pretty low level, but not good.

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

Watching the men's 4000-meter team pursuit finals. These guys have some of the grimmest pre-start faces I've seen in any Olympic event. Must hurt a lot toward the end.

Odd event I've never seen before. Spent riders just drop out. Few teams finish with all 4 starting riders. Gigantic chainrings. Amazing average speeds.

Australia just took the gold, Great Britain silver, Italy bronze. The British team trailed the whole time. Their near-crash on the last lap finished them off.

Now on to the men's individual sprint finals. Puzzling strategy as the 2 competitors weave slowly away from the start, one staying well behind the other. Why would you wanna be that guy?

 

[Chargeride]

I always watch those incredible high torque start on those massive gears and picture the mechanics thinking.

Did I fully tighten that rear axle?

 

[JRA]

No love for Kristen Faulkner that won the women's road race? A really stellar effort and gold medal result and now she is riding on the women's pursuit team and looking like another medal might be in her future. Edit: Just saw they won the Gold!

I have spent a good amount of time in AK over the years and I have said many times that if I ever got stuck in a wild, remote place, I would hope to be with an Alaskan gal because they are pretty tough and resourceful!

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

Agree, Faulkner's road race finish was quite dramatic. Memory's a little fuzzy here: Didn't she overcome an early fall or mechanical to get the gold?

Still don't get why the riders she was with at the time of her final attack made no visible attempt to go after her. They just kept looking at each other as she sailed away.

 

[JRA]

It was Chloe Dygart, the other US gal, that suffered a crash that ultimately led to Kristen taking off from the bunch in the confusion but still had to get to the two leaders at the time with the world champ on her wheel. Road bike racing is more tactical than just hammering on the pedals and sometimes makes no sense to me in situations like how she just rode the others off her wheel but it happens quite a bit. Pretty cool though how she and Chloe carried on at the track too.

I was not happy with how the men's road race went down on a personal level as my guy, MVDP that I have followed for years, missed his goal of medaling and it was at the hands of the Belgians and now there will be no living with them for the next bit. Hopefully they fail at the World Champs or else they will be insufferable. Mathieu hasn't had much Olympic luck as he fell on the first lap of the MTB race in Tokyo and was a favorite to win.

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

Confusing (to me) track events this morning: Men's omnium and women's keirin. Generally no clue as to why some riders choose to go high on the banks when they do.

The bikes are aero in the extreme, but no one's riding a front disk wheel.

A hard top-speed 3-rider crash in the first heat of the women's keirin quarterfinals sent wheel disk shrapnel flying everywhere. Race-delaying track repairs ensued.

All of this prompted the commentators to spend some time talking about the unsung heroes of Olympic cycling— the bike mechanics — and the pressures they face.

And that got the cameras to dwell on the centerfield pit area. Must've been a zillion dollars worth of bikes there in various stages of assembly and repair!

 

[JRA]

Track racing has been around as long or longer than any other form of bicycle racing. Check out Major Taylor for a good read. It has evolved over the years certainly but the bikes themselves are basically the same, stripped down versions of what we consider to be bikes today. Sure they are made out of exotic materials instead of the steel framed bikes and probably weigh more than half as much but the sport is still up to the rider who if you look at the size of the legs on some of them are HUGE!

Not sure why they use disc's on the rear only but with as much time as teams spend in wind tunnels there has to be a reason. It was news for the mens time trial that Wout VanAert used a front disc on his bike and he medaled but who knows if it made the difference as the other medalists didn't.