I hope you’re enjoying the track cycling at the Olympics. It’s proving to be a good contest but at the same time a strange one. For example the rule of one athlete per nation in a race means some of the best riders are left at home, indeed the field is of a lower quality compared to the World Championships. Although because only the best get selected by each nation of course we still get worthy winners. It’s just we’re denied the full show.
I enjoy being sent books for review but this time when the publisher called about the new US edition of David Millar’s autobiography “Racing Through the Dark” I said I’d already reviewed the book when it came out in Europe so there was no point getting another review copy.
Instead they offered to send three copies to give away to readers of the blog. This was impossible to refuse so here’s your chance to win a hardback copy of the book. It’s the US version and includes extras that weren’t in the Euro edition.
Question
What was the type of first bike race David Millar rode:
Consumed by Jonathan Budds
With the illustration of a cycling figure on the cover and the opening pages talking about a bike race I first took this for a cycling book. But the more you get into the story, the more it becomes.
Cycling teams are businesses. The holder of a UCI Pro Team licence can be an individual but most often the team is a corporate entity, a company created to handle the income from sponsors and pay out expenses like rider wages.
This is the case with Team Sky and, like all companies, it publishes its annual report and accounts. Here is a look at the finances of Team Sky, from the exact budget down to the tiny details and it’s more than just dull accounts, it tells us plenty about the team and the sport. Including why the team has only three employees.
I’ll be covering the track racing over the coming days and am looking forward to it. But there’s one thing to cover first, the way women get unequal treatment in the sport.
The opening ceremony of the London games featured scenes from Britain’s past including a tribute to the women who fought for the right to vote and later several women were flag carriers for the Gulf states, a first for the region. But if the struggle for equality is celebrated by some there are still parts of the games were men and women are not treated equally.
Cycling is one such sport and this blog doesn’t cover the others. Cycling is at a halfway point, the 2012 games are the first to award an equal amount of medals to the men and women but women are still riding shorter distances and have smaller team sizes. Should things be equal, can things be equal?
It’s not often a time trial gets a preview but this is the Olympics. But as special as the occasion might be, the course is a classic test of speed and power for men and women alike. It’s also the moment the Olympics leave London’s shiny new sports facilities and medieval palaces for the suburbs and their brick-built houses.
European energy company Enovos has been a co-sponsor of the Radioshack-Nissan team, starting with Leopard-Trek last year. But it has just announced it is walking away mid-season from the cycling team, publicly dropping its connections to the team. This is very rare in cycling and sport in general.
Here’s the press release translated into English:
There’s a pause in the Olympic cycling program with the time trial not until Wednesday and then activities start in the velodrome on Thursday. Remember you can download an iCal file for your electronic diary for the dates and timing of all events.
The Olympics are very different from everything else we are used to. A rider who makes a mess of the Tour of Flanders can hope to make amends in Paris-Roubaix. Have a jours sans in the Tour de France and you can hope it’s someone else’s turn the following day. Even if things go wrong in the world’s there’s always next year. But the Olympic road race? It’s not until 2016 and the Rio race promises to be very hilly.
On the back of the Box Hill circuit there was a descent followed by a steep rise that turned into a drag. It’s the kind of road you approach with plenty of momentum from the descent but then it climbs up too much to carry speed, instead riders had to balance momentum with power.
That’s just what happened today, we saw a clever move launched by Olga Zabelinskaya, blasting past Amber Neben and Emma Pooley and the Russian was joined by Lizzie Armitstead, Shelley Olds and Marianne Vos. The four got away and this was the winning move.
With 8km go go both Rigoberto Uran and Alexander Vinokourov attacked at the same time. They came round a ninety degree bend and both jumped out of the saddle, one going on the left and the other on the right of a wide road. It looked like happy coincidence, both riders went clear and found themselves able to cooperate. But this dual effort seemed to confuse the others and gave them the chance to get a small lead and co-operate. It was the moment the race was won.