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

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More money != Better sport.

You cannot spend away physiological differences. We dont expect the U13 kids (Which BTW would beat the women) to "improve" to the level of the world tour peloton, we accept them for what they are.
Rubbish. The same argument gets trotted out all the time no matter what the sport is. "These women would lose to teens, I am very intelligent."

If you want to see adults of any gender beaten by 13 year olds, find something better to do with your time and enter a Zwift race.
 
Honestly, what I could be worried about is that some people might use this whole sitation as a a "reason" to not show more women's racing. After all; "Why would anyone wanna see more of that????!!!" - Screamed all the haters.
However, what people forget is that when something similar happens in a men's race - whether it's underrestimating an attacker, miscounting how many were away, or a combination - people rightfully understand that it was an anomaly, and go on to watch the next race.
 
"This race is raced with really small countryteams, and in my opinion it's more beautiful with only big countryteams."

"The girls who were attacking were girls from the right column that's how we call them."

"The girl who won we don't know and never raced against her..."


I have to admit that I follow women's cycling way less than men's but Annemiek van Vleute sounds like about the biggest douchebag imaginable. Not only did she (and her team) not congratulate, she is still talking completely arrogant ***. And actually the last statement is factually incorrect.

Could be that my condensed view of her is worse than her "normal" behavior but I fully hearted will root against her in every further race I see her participating in (probably not too much anyway, considering her age and my viewing habits). Just an awful display of character.
 
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Honestly, what I could be worried about is that some people might use this whole sitation as a a "reason" to not show more women's racing. After all; "Why would anyone wanna see more of that????!!!" - Screamed all the haters.
However, what people forget is that when something similar happens in a men's race - whether it's underrestimating an attacker, miscounting how many were away, or a combination - people rightfully understand that it was an anomaly, and go on to watch the next race.

Outside of cycling circles I think - as on my local community board - it's just being seen as a huge victory for the underdog against the big and the smug. An anology would be someone like Halifax Town beating Manchester United in a cup final, and that wouldn't stop people watching or playing football.
 
Could be that my condensed view of her is worse than her "normal" behavior but I fully hearted will root against her in every further race I see her participating in (probably not too much anyway, considering her age and my viewing habits). Just an awful display of character.

She embarrassed herself in multiple ways today certainly.
 
Coryn Rivera and Kasia Niewadoma in conversation after the race
Also a heartbreaking "Hi Dad" from Coryn, as her dad died earlier this year from Covid:(


Great article about her and her dad

 
To be honest I don't see this as particularly bad spectacle or one that will put people off women's cycling, it was exciting and seeing someone win from a longshot break is fantastic to see on a big stage.

In terms of the Dutch team, I see them as being analogous to the USA Olympic Men's Basketball team in 2004 - a loss born from hubris from beginning to end. They selected a team with only star players and without any role players, didn't scout their opponents (famously they referred to the Papaloukas and Diamantidis in the Greek team by their numbers in their post loss interview as none of the USA players knew who they were). Here the Dutch selected a team of star riders then didn't commit anyone to chase down the break until Van Vleuten attacked, I think the other teams in the peloton quite rightly were daring them to use up one of their riders to chase the break and they just didn't bother. And I think the comments of Van Vleuten and Van der Breggen display a sense of arrogance, even if you don't know the rider, letting any break get 10 minutes in a race of less than 150km without any control is madness!
 
View: https://twitter.com/Andymcgra/status/1419242763544113154

So an academic/self-taught enthusiast who doesn't thrive in a peloton won gold. Amazing result, it fully makes up for the race itself not being all the entertaining.
I mean it's worth mentioning that she was still a triathlete in 2012 so not very surprising she wasn't great in a pure cycling race yet.

Also I just checked and she is actually from a town only like 30 km from where I live. That's kinda cool. Too bad though she is from the uncivilised side of the danube but I guess nobody is perfect.
 
"This race is raced with really small countryteams, and in my opinion it's more beautiful with only big countryteams."

"The girls who were attacking were girls from the right column that's how we call them."

"The girl who won we don't know and never raced against her..."


I habe to admit that I follow women's cycling way less than men's but Annemiek van Vleute sounds like about the biggest douchebag imaginable. Not only did she (and her team) not congratulate, she is still talking completely arrogant ***. And actually the last statement is factually incorrect.

Could be that my condensed view of her is worse than her "normal" behavior but I fully hearted will root against her in every further race I see her participating in (probably not too much anyway, considering her age and my viewing habits). Just an awful display of character.
Definitely not very gracious and a lot of firing of the excuse cannon going on. I guess especially in Annemiek's case she had unfinished business with the Olympics, and this was probably one of the races that has been keeping her going for the last couple of seasons, and I think she genuinely feels that with the organisational confusion (both in her own team car and from the organisation) she has been somehow wronged and is lashing out. Makes her seem very bitter and disrespectful.

Now, the numbers in the race issue and maximum field size problem is a fair argument which has been made many times. But making it this way is harsh and wrong.

Anyway... Anna Plichta might be on Lotto now who are middling in size, but she has raced for WM3, Boels-Dolmans and Trek-Segafredo for four of the last 5 seasons; Omer Shapira is on Canyon-SRAM. All of those teams will have been in "the left column" even if those riders will have been largely helpers...
 
Think it was overall good promotion for women cycling. People love the underdog story and it was a good narrative with both Kiesenhofer and AvV leaving everything on the road. Although the Rio 2016 race obv had more drama to it, I'd rather have the medals decided in such a way than through crashes. From reading interviews it also seems that the Dutch just thought in the last 5k that they had caught everyone - by then, the race for gold was already decided.

Also to make a note: People who call the women's racing amateurish are the ones coming off as way more arrogant here than the dutch themselves, I think.
 
Nobody expects the women to beat the men lol, we just expect with more money and more organsiation for there to be more top level cyclists who can compete with the likes of Van Vleuten, and less anomalies. Take track cycling, for example, which has received more professional attention over the past few decades - there is less total dominance, and races are of a similar nature to the men's. Or tennis, where the women's field is actually way more competetive than the men's.

I have a feeling, though, you just dislike women's sports.
IMO tennis shows you that even with the same amount of money going into both sides the landscape looks way different between them. Differences between men and women
 
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In terms of the Dutch team, I see them as being analogous to the USA Olympic Men's Basketball team in 2004 - a loss born from hubris from beginning to end. They selected a team with only star players and without any role players, didn't scout their opponents (famously they referred to the Papaloukas and Diamantidis in the Greek team by their numbers in their post loss interview as none of the USA players knew who they were). Here the Dutch selected a team of star riders then didn't commit anyone to chase down the break until Van Vleuten attacked, I think the other teams in the peloton quite rightly were daring them to use up one of their riders to chase the break and they just didn't bother. And I think the comments of Van Vleuten and Van der Breggen display a sense of arrogance, even if you don't know the rider, letting any break get 10 minutes in a race of less than 150km without any control is madness!
Hubris is the correct word for the dutch. I think they got too Greedy. They wanted a clean sweep and they were swept off the top step
 
I still think the Dutch was trying to use the SD Worx tactic of just attacking all over the place, instead of having to pull the others like they expected them to do. That tactic obviously failed (maybe because they didn't know Kiesenhofer was in front/had the right time gaps or underestimated her strength, maybe they were too tired or the heat made it harder for them to make the right choices, maybe Van Vleuten just wasn't as strong as expected or she lost her edge after the crash and the possible mechanical prior to it, or maybe it was a mix of all of it), but in the end the other teams didn't benefit from wanting the Dutch to work for them either (and I'm not saying there was anything wrong with depending on the in every way superior team to do the chasing/take initiative, but teams with more than one rider could have tried different things).

The outcome was also affected by the Doushi Road not quite being hard enough to force a major selection, which made it easier for a lot of riders to come back pretty fast when the pace dropped. Doushi Road did end up dropping most of the the Australians though, and if Spratt had been on her best form (Brown died after closing down a Dutch attack), then they would probably have been invested in the chase.

And I don't want to take anything away from Kiesenhofer's gutsy ride either, cause that was a truly fantastic performance.

Spratt has shown no form in two years which is embarrassing for someone who is in the ten best paid riders in the women's peleton.
 
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I can understand why Avv is frustrated after what happened at the last Olympics, but she comes off sooo unlikable.
Admit that you messed up and add that Anna (the likable one) was also really strong. If you dislike the format of the Olympics, fine, but all those excuses and disrespecting other riders...
 
"This race is raced with really small countryteams, and in my opinion it's more beautiful with only big countryteams."

"The girls who were attacking were girls from the right column that's how we call them."

"The girl who won we don't know and never raced against her..."


I habe to admit that I follow women's cycling way less than men's but Annemiek van Vleute sounds like about the biggest douchebag imaginable. Not only did she (and her team) not congratulate, she is still talking completely arrogant ***. And actually the last statement is factually incorrect.

Could be that my condensed view of her is worse than her "normal" behavior but I fully hearted will root against her in every further race I see her participating in (probably not too much anyway, considering her age and my viewing habits). Just an awful display of character.
I have been a van Vleuten fan for years but must admit her immediate reaction after finishing fell short of the Roglic standard (from the 2020 TDF time trial finish).
 

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