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The Pro Cycling Thread (Part 2)


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Old 20-02-2015, 18:51
Edward_Sloley
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Matthew Archibald (NZL) still leads with 3 riders left. That time may well be enough for a medal.

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And it is! Simon Van Velthooven (NZL) is not happy with his ride.

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Joachim Eilers (GER) has taken the lead with 1:00.294. Only François Pervis left to start.

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1:00.207 for the win! Mind you, that is a bit slower than I thought he would produce - in fact, Stefan Nimke's sea-level best of 1:00.082 is still intact...
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Old 20-02-2015, 19:06
Doghouse Riley
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There's no such thing as a "happy medium."

The "red button" commentary yesterday was abysmal, too much rabbit that probably interested more those with the microphones.

The main BBC2 presentation was over the top in places.
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Old 20-02-2015, 19:45
cmq2
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In other news, next weekend, Dame Sarah Storey's attempt at the women's hour record will be streamed live: http://www.cyclingrevolution.com/new...ve-stream.html
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Old 20-02-2015, 21:36
Edward_Sloley
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Crikey, that was an awesome elimination race! Viviani pips defending champion Boudat (FRA) to win event 3 of the men's omnium.

At the halfway point, the top 3 are Gaviria, Viviani and Boudat.

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No IP medal for Rowsell this time, and Varnish goes no further. Tomorrow's women's sprint semi-finals are as follows:
Zhong v Vogel (repeat of last year's final)
Ligtlee v Morton
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Old 21-02-2015, 10:34
cmq2
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It's the weekend, it's a key uphill finish in a mini-tour, and it's Eurosport. Why even bother to check what time live coverage starts?
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Old 21-02-2015, 11:32
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It's the weekend, it's a key uphill finish in a mini-tour, and it's Eurosport. Why even bother to check what time live coverage starts?
Now, now don't be greedy, you have all summer for cycling - only a few weeks to go in the Winter Sports season.

Geraint Thomas has a 30 second lead in the Tour of the Algarve after stage 3, another hill top finish today. Tony Martin won yesterday's TT.

http://www1.skysports.com/cycling/ne...ns-stage-three
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Old 21-02-2015, 11:49
cmq2
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Now, now don't be greedy, you have all summer for cycling - only a few weeks to go in the Winter Sports season.
Welsh snooker - a winter sport? And, the following Superbike hour looks like a shorter repeat of this morning's highlights.
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Old 21-02-2015, 11:52
swingaleg
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It's the weekend, it's a key uphill finish in a mini-tour, and it's Eurosport. Why even bother to check what time live coverage starts?
There was no live coverage on day 2 either

This is something ES started doing a couple of years ago........missing out stages on races they were covering live

I suppose on the plus side these tend to be the lower level races that they didn't show at all 3 or 4 years ago.......

Still it's annoying when some days are live and some are not
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Old 21-02-2015, 12:07
grassmarket
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There was no live coverage on day 2 either

This is something ES started doing a couple of years ago........missing out stages on races they were covering live
It is BRITISH Eurosport which is doing this - international Eurosport are showing them, but BE always give priority to snooker, tennis etc. What is really annoying though is that they do not even make the stream available on the Eurosport Player so that you have the option of watching it instead.
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Old 21-02-2015, 12:55
cmq2
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Bizarre scheduling as the repeated superbike highlights could move into the delayed cycling coverage slot. All that is then required is to skip the last frame of the afternoon session (and, if critical, show it at the start of the evening).

When race coverage does start it will be interesting to see Sky's tactics. Will they use the team to attack Contador's lead or instead try to consolidate the team's top ten positions?

Four riders within 31 seconds of third place on the podium: Intxausti, Bardet, Kennaugh and Nieve.
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Old 21-02-2015, 16:59
Edward_Sloley
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Kenny was knocked out of the men's sprint pretty early, and Trott had a poor scratch race in her omnium, though she won the individual pursuit and is now 14 points off the lead.

Other than Trott, I can't see where another medal could come from. GB may well leave these champs without a single rainbow jersey for the first time in 14 years...
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Old 21-02-2015, 18:35
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Absolutely incredible stage of the Tour de Andalusia, watch it if you can.
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Old 21-02-2015, 18:37
swingaleg
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Quite an amusing start to tonight's proceedings at the new 75 million euro velodrome

A hole in the roof........and a drip dripping onto the track ........

Lots of faffing about.........lots of Gallic shrugging......

they appear to have stationed a man with a mop near the scene who will dash out and mop it at regular intervals.......
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Old 21-02-2015, 18:38
cmq2
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Classic stage. Best of the road season so far this year. Sky let Kennaugh and Nieve have their opportunity to try to break free from Intxausti before Froome went boom.

The lanky Wanty Group rider finished seventeen and a half minutes down after leading somewhere near to the last couple of kilometres. He will have real trouble getting accepted in breaks in future.
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Old 21-02-2015, 18:39
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Absolutely incredible stage of the Tour de Andalusia, watch it if you can.
Yes........

Bit spoiled for me though as they gave the result out on radio 5 this afternoon.......

they normally only give cycling results if it's the Tour de France.
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Old 21-02-2015, 19:15
cmq2
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Froome seemed to adopt Contador's out of the saddle style (head dipping excepted) when he applied the crucial pressure: http://youtu.be/BDjsLcH2-_0?t=23m05s
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Old 21-02-2015, 21:49
The Ambassador
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Quite an amusing start to tonight's proceedings at the new 75 million euro velodrome

A hole in the roof........and a drip dripping onto the track ........

Lots of faffing about.........lots of Gallic shrugging......

they appear to have stationed a man with a mop near the scene who will dash out and mop it at regular intervals.......
Switched on earlier and saw this.

Not so sure i'd have been amused with the Travis & Rhianna song choices played into the velodrome if i had been there.

Fantastic elimination race win for Laura, puts her in third place, six off the lead, going into the second day.
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Old 22-02-2015, 14:37
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Video summary of the conditions that caused the cancellation of yesterday's stage in the Tour of Oman:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSv9WKOyHCA
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Old 22-02-2015, 14:59
swingaleg
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So.........GB fails to win a gold medal at the track world championships for the first time since 2001

Is this just a mid Olympic cycle trough or have the other main nations caught us up now ?

I fear it's the latter........

It does seem as though the other countries have taken on board the advances made by GB over the last 15 years and their own national programmes are now reaping rewards

One of the commentators mentioned the New Zealand national centre which appears to be a copy of the Manchester programme........get all the decent cyclists in one place to train with each other and share the specialist coaching and medical expertise which has been brought together in one facility. No doubt other countries are doing the same.

I guess the acid test will be Rio.........
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Old 22-02-2015, 15:20
Psycho_Ned
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18 months out from Rio I'd suspect it's not just a Olympic cycle trough, Team GB aren't the powerhouse force they once were.

All good things have to come to an end and with a combination of losing the greats like Hoy and Pendleton and the other countries copying the GB blueprint for training and setup we're not going to be plundering all the medals in Rio a la Beijing and London.

Laura Trott and the pursuit teams will obviously be gold medal contenders but after that you are hoping Jason Kenny can somehow get his mojo back and Becky James can get fully fit.
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Old 22-02-2015, 15:40
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the British lads have gained a lap in the Madison and are in first place at the moment.....

can we get a gold medal after all ?.......
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Old 22-02-2015, 16:09
stono
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So.........GB fails to win a gold medal at the track world championships for the first time since 2001

Is this just a mid Olympic cycle trough or have the other main nations caught us up now ?

I fear it's the latter........

It does seem as though the other countries have taken on board the advances made by GB over the last 15 years and their own national programmes are now reaping rewards

One of the commentators mentioned the New Zealand national centre which appears to be a copy of the Manchester programme........get all the decent cyclists in one place to train with each other and share the specialist coaching and medical expertise which has been brought together in one facility. No doubt other countries are doing the same.
.

I think its a mixture of things, other nations have obviously caught up and perhaps even surpassed TeamGB in some respects though you could argue the Australians have been using dedicated sports institutes for training campuses for years, TeamGB didnt invent the manchester concept as such.

but you need the raw talent to go with it, and obviously losing the likes of Hoy and Pendleton from the sprint disciplines the next group coming through arent quite at their level, maybe they never will be, but you cant really tell without access to the data/times whether its just the team were off their best achievable performances, or that the rest were just better.

I mean in the Womens team pursuit, the Australians knocked 7 seconds of their national record & 3 seconds off the world record, TeamGB matched their own world record to within a 10th at least,went faster than theyd ever been at sea level and were down to 3 riders for a good chunk, which I still cant work out was intentional or not, only 1 other team posted under 4:20. so where do you pick out the bones from that, if thats our best chance at a Gold medal.

I think Id be more worried if TeamGB were sweeping the boards now, & setting world records in everything, because youd not sustain that kind of form till the Olympics, and there are things they can go away and look at and theyve still got the time to improve

but almost certainly wont win the same haul of medals in Rio as at Beijing/London, but you know its like count how many medals we won in the 14 years prior to 2001.
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Old 22-02-2015, 16:23
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Interesting to see Bryan Coquard and Elia Vivianni battling out in the track sprint as opposed to their usual Road rivalry.

As for the GB performance they seem to always build up to the Olympics and peak then so not very concerned. It will take some years to bring through the next generation but judging by the numbers using the facilities at Stratford and Glasgow it won't be too long.

France have always had a fantastic cycling tradition and their resurgence shouldn't be surprising. They took two of the three podium places at Le Tour last year too. Australians have always been powerful on the track and have stepped up in the face of a few years of GB dominance.
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Old 22-02-2015, 17:21
Edward_Sloley
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Grégory Baugé is back!

He had an almighty scrap with Pervis just to make the semi-finals, but he has become the sprint World Champion once again - incredible. Combined with the madison victory, that means France top the medal table for the first time in 11 years.

Once again, track conditions had produced fast times:
Stefan Bötticher (GER) was fastest qualifier in 9.641s (in 2012 Olympics, Kenny clocked 9.713)
Adam Ptacnik (CZE) clocked 9.996 and did not qualify
Match sprint (semi-final race 2) between Jeffrey Hoogland (NED) and Denis Dmitriev (RUS) was clocked at 9.829 - for a match sprint, that is insane!

If there's one discipline in which Meares can claim a final Olympic title, it's the keirin. Today she won her 11th WCh title & 26th medal.
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Old 22-02-2015, 18:00
dodrade
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18 months out from Rio I'd suspect it's not just a Olympic cycle trough, Team GB aren't the powerhouse force they once were.

All good things have to come to an end and with a combination of losing the greats like Hoy and Pendleton and the other countries copying the GB blueprint for training and setup we're not going to be plundering all the medals in Rio a la Beijing and London.

Laura Trott and the pursuit teams will obviously be gold medal contenders but after that you are hoping Jason Kenny can somehow get his mojo back and Becky James can get fully fit.
I've always thought the idea of Team GB doing better in Rio than London was hubristic but with the cyclists out of form there is no chance whatsoever.
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