Olympics 2021 err 2020

[TrevL]

but amazing for Austria and Keisenhoffer.

I'll be watching the highlights later. I understand she isn't signed to a team, if she does get signed, you can bet your life the peleton will never let her get in a breakaway ever again.

[njee20]

I'd never heard of her (but don't follow women's cycling, I could name the 10 perennial performers and few others!) - she retired in 2017 apparently, and then came back a year later, but yes, hasn't had a pro contract since. It sounds like they simply didn't know she was up the road, rather than they had underestimated her. Van Vleuten obviously thought she'd won, and Lizzie Deignan thought so too!

[gc4946]

BBC (in UK) has been the pre-eminent provider of TV coverage of the Olympics, highlighting the 2012 and 2016 games.
However, if you only have Freeview, your choices are limited, particularly if watching live action and if your favourite sport(s) aren't covered by what the BBC provides

"During the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Olympics, the BBC was able to offer dozens of free livestreams of different sports ...
This is no longer possible, however, after Olympics organisers decided to sell the European television rights for the games to the US company Discovery in a £920m deal. Discovery has in turn put the vast majority of the coverage behind a paywall, accessible only through their Eurosport channels or on the new £6.99-a-month streaming service Discovery+ ...
as part of this sub-licensing arrangement, the BBC can show a maximum of two live events at one time, through one television channel and a second feed provided through the red button service and online"

From the Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/jul/25/bbc-olympics-coverage-misses-events-after-selling-tv-rights

[njee20]

That makes sense, I was wondering why the footage seemed pretty poor. Not sure I fancy my chances of finding the mountain biking tomorrow morning!

[LASteve]

On the road race cycling subject, it's quite clear that a one-day "national team" event is in no way comparable with a grand tour stage race such as the TdF or the Giro as far as tactics are concerned.

There is absolutely no incentive for collaboration in the peleton or in a chase group to reel in a breakway when you're all racing for yourselves. Both the men's and the women's races featured a solo, grind-it-out effort in the last many kms - Carapaz and McNulty in the men's race, and Kiesenhofer in the women's while all the chasers were looking at each other and playing cat-and-mouse over the last 500m for the silver and bronze. It looked more like a track pursuit than a road race.

Add to the fact that very few countries can actually furnish a full team complement (even the UK only had four, the USA only two in the men's event) and the likelihood of watching an Enios or UAE-like team effort is zero.

The Dutch women's team had all four of their members leading the peleton and still couldn't get it together to put a concerted effort together to bring back the leaders. It took them about 20 minutes to catch Juliette Labous and she was only 20 seconds ahead of the entire peleton in the last 20 kms.

Add to the fact that there's no race radio from the team directors to the riders communicating splits and times, and you get the thrill of pure racing.

Chapeau to Ecuador and Austria. Delighted for both riders.

It was also great to see TV aerial coverage of the countryside outside Tokyo to give us non-Japanese some context of what the country looks like outside the major cities. From a US perspective, very sorry that Phil Liggett wasn't part of the NBC commentary team as he is during the TdF, but Bob Rolle and Steve Porino did an excellent job. From a different perspective, I watched the streamed replay of the finish that NBC had on their catch-up service and there were two completely different commentators, both Australian, and both quite terrible.

For you UK folks, I know it's a b*gg*r that the BBC can't have free-to-air coverage because of the Discovery deal, but maybe consider shelling out £6.99 for a trial month of Discovery+ and cancel after the Games. Mrs. Project Manager and I do this for ESPN+ and CBS Sports every year so we can watch the FA Cup and the Champions League soccer. Once the finals are done, we cancel until the competition kicks off again (or gets interesting) the next season. This season we even got a three-month-free incentive to "tempt us back" to ESPN+. Thank you very much!

Just my 2¢

Oh, and @Bealman - George - Megan Rapinoe is a current member of the US Women's National Team for soccer. She has a soapboxing opinion about everything and anything, has loudly sued for equal pay for women soccer players in the US, sold the rights to her wedding to a tabloid magazine (who cares!) and is complicit in the sporting "bullying" of lesser countries. She was grandstanding right up to the finish of a quite embarrassing 13-0 victory over Thailand in the World Cup which set many, many people against the US women's team.

Now don't get me wrong, I will argue to the end for gender equality and opportunity, but sport is a commercial enterprise, and men's soccer tends to get more eyeballs, advertising dollars and paid admissions than the women's game, it's just a fact of life as we currently stand.

My quibble was that the women's road race was run over a course 100 kms shorter than the men's equivalent, and I would be interested to hear her views on why that is so. The women don't sprint 60m rather than 100m on the track, they don't run a 15-mile marathon, so why chop off three climbs and 70 miles in a cycling road race?

They do play two fewer sets in tennis for the same prize money though, so I suppose there's a precedent set there.

[Bealman]

Thanks, Steve. 

Currently one eye on this and the other on the swimming! 

[LASteve]

The more I think about the cycling road race, the stranger it seems.

So countries can send a "team" of cyclists, up to five per country, but the winning rider is awarded the gold, and the rest of the "team", unless individually winning silver or bronze, get nowt?

No wonder no-one in the peleton has the slightest interest in helping anyone else out. You might as well call it a mass-start individual time-trial and have done with it.

Are there any other "team" sports in the Olympics where it's winner take all and the devil take the hindmost? The guy or girl who scores the winning goal in the Cup Final gets a gold, and the rest of the team are told to go and get in the bath? The other team captain gets the silver and the winner of the third-place game has a "most popular player" vote for the bronze?

It's quite bizarre, this Olympic thing.

[Bealman]

Yeah, it is a bit strange. Just watched mens relay in the swimming. The whole team get medals.

[railsquid]

The typhoon's predicted path has shifted northwards slightly, so the windy bit will probably only skim the Tokyo area (and it doesn't seemt to be a particularly strong one):



However with these things, the wind is usually less of an issue than the massive amount of rain they push in front of them, which will affect a much wider area, with all the attendant fun that brings (floods, bits of steep landscape attempting to become less steep, and other fun stuff like masses of sea spray being blown over electrical infrastructure).

[Bealman]

Ah well, at least there's a roof on the swimming, but they're in the water anyway 

[NScaleNotes]

The more I think about the cycling road race, the stranger it seems.

So countries can send a "team" of cyclists, up to five per country, but the winning rider is awarded the gold, and the rest of the "team", unless individually winning silver or bronze, get nowt?

No wonder no-one in the peleton has the slightest interest in helping anyone else out. You might as well call it a mass-start individual time-trial and have done with it.

Are there any other "team" sports in the Olympics where it's winner take all and the devil take the hindmost? The guy or girl who scores the winning goal in the Cup Final gets a gold, and the rest of the team are told to go and get in the bath? The other team captain gets the silver and the winner of the third-place game has a "most popular player" vote for the bronze?

It's quite bizarre, this Olympic thing.

Perhaps some of the long distance running events where runners will sometimes shelter/pace another runner going for a medal.

At the end of the day it's an individual event and I'd say it's more of a case of allowing team working rather than the race being a 'team' event like some of the track events.
Every sport can have multiple entrants from each country but the nature of the road race just makes it more obvious as there are no heats to thin the pack. Working as a team is quite beneficial in cycling so it's natural it would happen if you have a outstanding rider representing your nation and you knew you had little chance of winning despite making it that far. Not only that but the history of cycling has probably also played a part too as professional teams were often drawn from the same nations (even now look at Movistar or B&B Hotels) and those team allegiances perhaps carried over to the Olympics.
Now if you had two outstanding riders from the same country and they both had a chance of winning then all bets are off so in that sense it's no longer a team event.

It's not that much different to the World Cycling Championship road race, with teams drawn along national lines, that can/do work together but only individual rewards.

Interesting point though.

[njee20]

On the road race cycling subject, it's quite clear that a one-day "national team" event is in no way comparable with a grand tour stage race such as the TdF or the Giro as far as tactics are concerned.

There is absolutely no incentive for collaboration in the peleton or in a chase group to reel in a breakway when you're all racing for yourselves. Both the men's and the women's races featured a solo, grind-it-out effort in the last many kms - Carapaz and McNulty in the men's race, and Kiesenhofer in the women's while all the chasers were looking at each other and playing cat-and-mouse over the last 500m for the silver and bronze. It looked more like a track pursuit than a road race.

Add to the fact that very few countries can actually furnish a full team complement (even the UK only had four, the USA only two in the men's event) and the likelihood of watching an Enios or UAE-like team effort is zero.

The Dutch women's team had all four of their members leading the peleton and still couldn't get it together to put a concerted effort together to bring back the leaders. It took them about 20 minutes to catch Juliette Labous and she was only 20 seconds ahead of the entire peleton in the last 20 kms.

Add to the fact that there's no race radio from the team directors to the riders communicating splits and times, and you get the thrill of pure racing.

...

My quibble was that the women's road race was run over a course 100 kms shorter than the men's equivalent, and I would be interested to hear her views on why that is so. The women don't sprint 60m rather than 100m on the track, they don't run a 15-mile marathon, so why chop off three climbs and 70 miles in a cycling road race?

They do play two fewer sets in tennis for the same prize money though, so I suppose there's a precedent set there.

I think the lack of race radio or proper updates was more pivotal. They simply didn't know Keisenhofer was up the road. Van Vleuten was sure she was going for the win, as did others in the field. In terms of the motivation to chase down breakaways the collective motivation of the favourites should prevail. But yes, any of the events where people ride for their country will always be a bit weird - as NScaleNotes says you still get allegiences between trade team riders, and you lack the sort of firepower for 'leadouts' or anything because the team sizes are much smaller, tend to cover a wider range of disciplines and they simply don't have the experience to perform.

On the distance - it's always been the case, in virtually all cycling events I can think of, that women's races are shorter, from amateur to world tour. The mountain biking and TT are be the same (in the TT the women do 1 lap of 22km versus 2 for the men - so a big difference), and this is the first Olympics that the BMX tracks have been the same for both genders. The throwing sports are different - the shotput and hammer are lighter (7.26kg for the men and 4kg for the women) and the javelins are shorter. Tennis, as you identify. Away from the (summer) Olympics skiing is similar; the downhill courses aren't the same with men's courses being tougher. Sure there are others.

[Newportnobby]

I just assume there are both team sports and individual sports in the Olympics. A bit pointless having 'teams' in an event where only the first 3 get medals. Lizzie Deignan was really the only hopeful in the GB team but each of the 4 Netherlands riders could have won if they'g got their act together. In comparison, the track cycling awards medals to each member of the team apart from, obviously, individual races.

[njee20]

It is an interesting observation though - I don't think there are any other sports which 'require' (in the loosest sense) a team contribution but only award individual performance. All the team sports, relays etc all award everyone. I don't think any other sports involve certain competitors throwing away their chance of victory to help another succeed, with no actual reward.

That said... Carapaz was the sole Ecuadorian entrant, I imagine Kiesenhofer was the only Austrian. Alexander Vinokourov was one of two Kazakhs in London men's race, ok Rio was won by a Belgian and a Dutch, who I imagine both fielded a full team, but still, you can clearly prevail without a team.

[Gordon]

I like the road / public area based events - gives a chance to see the paraphernalia we normally just see on Kato Diotown or Tomytec bus system roads. In the women's triathlon this evening some nice views of metro trains and two lorries passing in the background  carrying respectively  Maersk and Evergreen containers 'at the other end of their journey'. Made me wonder if I've ever seen either of those exact containers on the A1M or WCML...