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2020...2021 Olympic Women's Road Race, Tokyo, 137 KM

This is a thread!
No Fuji, booo! :( , but here we go!

Here's a profile, kinda small, but the best I could find (didn't really look...):

9096_2021.jpg


And here's a startlist!

Olympic Games RR (firstcycling.com)
 
Please, please, please let Anna win this... no other rider will do for me...

I wonder how the Dutch will play it though... with van Vleuten putting everything into this basket I can't see her doing anything but race to win. And Vollering isn't a bad domestique, but she's a better finisher. And Vos should want to win instead of work...
:astonished:
?
 
The eternal optimist in me (finding that took a LOT of digging) thinks Demi Vollering will win, on the basis that in Rio, Annemiek van Vleuten was on paper option 4 of 4 for the Dutch but wound up being the strongest and the expected gold, save for her brutal fall. Since the women get a complete joke and insult of a race, a complete afterthought built around them spending hours scanning options for the men's race and then going, "aww s**t, no room for anything for the women. No problem, they can just have this boring facsimile that's basically more of the same that their calendar is already full of, none of the pre-race discussion will be about Fuji or Mikuni Pass anyway", the majority of the business part of the race will take place on the speedway circuit, so full of billiard table smooth, wide tarmac that will make such a fall less likely. And on paper Demi would be option 4 of 4 for the Dutch here, at least in theory, so that's my thinking.

Well, the eternal optimist in me has a podium of Kasia, Cille and Demi in some order but the fact all 3 of my picks in the Prediction Game were from the Dutch team tells you how likely I think that.
 
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Reactions: Andy262
Why don’t they allow more women to race—as in adjust the allotment system so at least there’s a full field? Even without an overly selective start to the race, the peloton will be reduced to 30-35 riders half through the race, which gives even more favorable chances to the couple of strong teams?
 
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Why don’t they allow more women to race—as in adjust the allotment system so at least there’s a full field?

because road cycling is (massively) overrepresented already at the Olympics, and the IOC doesn't want to have even more cyclists around.

For Paris there will be parity between men and women, though, and both races will have 90 starters (which probably is even worse, at least in my opinion)
 
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Reactions: joe_papp
because road cycling is (massively) overrepresented already at the Olympics, and the IOC doesn't want to have even more cyclists around.

For Paris there will be parity between men and women, though, and both races will have 90 starters (which probably is even worse, at least in my opinion)
I’m not sure if you meant that tongue-in-cheek, because although road cycling does break a fairly large number of athletes, there are only 2 medal events (for each sex). If they allotted medal events to cycling the way they do for swimming, there would be gold medals for flat sprint-finish courses, for long rouleur-type courses, for hilly puncheur courses, and for very hilly or mountainous-type courses. Plus several relays. Yeah, swimming is one of the big 3 summer Olympic events for TV broadcasts (along with gymnastics and track & field) but cycling is a bigger sport on the world stage so it should get a larger presence, not a smaller one
 
oh yeah, sure, overrepresented in terms of the number of athletes / medal competition ratio I mean, of course.

So if you ask for more women to participate, in means less male starters in consequence. And I doubt the IOC is going to change anything about that, anytime soon
 
I’m not sure if you meant that tongue-in-cheek, because although road cycling does break a fairly large number of athletes, there are only 2 medal events (for each sex). If they allotted medal events to cycling the way they do for swimming, there would be gold medals for flat sprint-finish courses, for long rouleur-type courses, for hilly puncheur courses, and for very hilly or mountainous-type courses. Plus several relays. Yeah, swimming is one of the big 3 summer Olympic events for TV broadcasts (along with gymnastics and track & field) but cycling is a bigger sport on the world stage so it should get a larger presence, not a smaller one
*** that. Make it a GT. Gold medals every day baby
 
At least the men's race wasn't fully decided on either Fuji or Mikuni.

After seeing it today, I don't really care for the Fuji Speedway, and I wish they had just kept it for the time trials.
Even in its day job, Suzuka and the criminally underrated Autopolis are vastly superior.

The thing I don't get is that Japan has a purpose built cycling circuit no further from Tokyo than Fuji Speedway, which is always selective in the Tour of Japan.

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oh yeah, sure, overrepresented in terms of the number of athletes / medal competition ratio I mean, of course.

So if you ask for more women to participate, in means less male starters in consequence. And I doubt the IOC is going to change anything about that, anytime soon
This will confirm my status as a cranky old traditionalist when it comes to Olympic sports, but just hold off on adding sports just for Video clicks or for reasons I can’t understand (3-on-3 bball? Really? That’s for when you don’t have enough players for 5 on 5 or when someone is using the other half court for volleyball), then you’ll have enough room for cyclists!
 

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