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

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Maybe it's just Dutch bluntness?
Or deflecting blame away from herself if she felt the question to be "was it your fault for not taking her seriously as a threat?"

I mean, breaks that gain like 10 minutes in women's cycling almost never happen. I mean, they seldom happen in men's cycling nowadays, but they used to happen reasonably often in flat stages, especially in hotter races like transitional week 2 ones in the south of France in Le Tour, or "those" meseta stages in the Vuelta with a solitary rider for Andalucía-CajaSur going up the road alone, so it wouldn't really be a surprise. In women's cycling, a lead of that kind of level for a break of the day exploit without the top teams represented is almost unheard of.
 
Or deflecting blame away from herself if she felt the question to be "was it your fault for not taking her seriously as a threat?"

I mean, breaks that gain like 10 minutes in women's cycling almost never happen. I mean, they seldom happen in men's cycling nowadays, but they used to happen reasonably often in flat stages, especially in hotter races like transitional week 2 ones in the south of France in Le Tour, or "those" meseta stages in the Vuelta with a solitary rider for Andalucía-CajaSur going up the road alone, so it wouldn't really be a surprise. In women's cycling, a lead of that kind of level for a break of the day exploit without the top teams represented is almost unheard of.
letting the break get such a big gap in a 130km race was pretty strange decision making even before the apparent confusion about numbers. did the Dutch just refuse to pull at all early on?
 
So the organizational side was bad, but if you have three riders in front from the beginning you should be able to realize you only passed two of them. That's a number even I would be able to manage. It's not like... oh, ***, there were 13 out front and we only caught 12...
And when van Vleuten celebrated like that in the end it just comes down to that, they didn't realize there was another one left, no matter the time gaps.
My, yes, you have to keep track of these things when you are without radios...

The original number was 5, 7 or 9 if you count the chasers, but that should of course still be fairly easy to keep track on.
 
Plichta and Shapira were caught late enough that there were no cars coming forward, nor riders dropping back and rejoining the chase group, after that. I don't think there was any opportunity by then to tell them that the catch was incomplete.

Why they hadn't told them earlier that the break had split, who knows?
 
Interviewer: "did you underestimate Kiesenhofer do you think?"
Anna van der Breggen: "I can't underestimate a rider I don't know"
It is not the best idea to give 10 minutes to a rider who was 11th in the EC and 18th in the WC time trial with only 2,5min back. She also won at Mont Ventoux . Great climber plus good TT plus 10minutes...What did the coaches think? Van Vleuten couldn't bring the gap under 5 minutes after her attack. They probably were a bit overconfident.
I am really happy for Kiesenhofer.
 
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Just finished watching the entire race on a belated signal.
Congrats to Anna Kiesenhofer for throwing the gloves from the gun, taking her only chance for an olympic gold medal.
However, can't hide I'm left a bit unredeemed by Dutch team tactics - why make counter attacks from long distance with breakaway @ +6mins? Senseless!
Nevertheless, that made it a nice, different race - and IMHO far more interesting than the pre-race predictions which everybody expected.
Been liking the olympic road races since LA'84 - and yesterday and today was no less lovable to me:)
 
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No better considering she had no less than one teammate with her the entire race, even when the Dutch were on the wrong side of that smallish split

Yes, I still think out of all the riders in the top 10 she was probably the least deserving bronze medalist (based purely on how she raced today). No attacks before the very end, no pulling or closing anything down, just sucking wheels for 136 point something km.
And then forcing me to look at that awful Pac-Man jersey on the podium didn't make it better.

But she is definitely a great rider and congratulations are of course in order.
If only Cille had been straight onto Kasia's wheel in the final instead of bringing the group with her, it could perhaps have ended differently, though they probably would have been caught by Van Vleuten ayway.
 
Deignan apparently said she did everything she could tactically, and thinks she played it perfectly tactically (of course, everything she chose to do was the right decision, it was others that made things go wrong for her), but unfortunately she was just a marked woman.

Deignan was cruelled by the poor choices made by the English selectors - As much as Shackley is a coming talent, you choose an experienced support rider when you only have 2 riders - The selectors also made poor selections for the men's race.
 
So with all the recriminations and the chatter, the interviews with van Vleuten, van der Breggen, Deignan, Longo Borghini, the people in the team cars... has anybody in the media thought to maybe try to talk to Anna Kiesenhofer?!
All that came out of her mouth were partial differential equations. Journalists are looking for mathematicians to decipher her speech.
 
Deignan was cruelled by the poor choices made by the English selectors - As much as Shackley is a coming talent, you choose an experienced support rider when you only have 2 riders - The selectors also made poor selections for the men's race.
Who do you reckon should've been the second, out of interest? I mean obviously Deignan is a no-brainer pick, but with Dani Rowe, Pooley and most of the previous generation retiring, there's not as much depth in the options as I thought there was. I'm looking at the next highest-ranked Britons in the rankings and you've got the Barnes sisters (possibilities, Hannah is more experienced, Alice a bit more all-round) and Anna Henderson (no more experienced than Shackley and less suited to the terrain). Shackley hasn't done much racing in the last couple of months either, so her form would be guesswork. I would think, though, that because Shackley did such a great job at Imola they backed her to do a similar job here.

My thought would have been Lizzy Banks, she's solid over all terrain, quite experienced and a strong stagehunter, so she would fit best perhaps?
 
The strangest thing about today's race is the women's peleton never gives the break 10 minutes - And today they thought they could do it with teams of 4 or less when in a normal race they have 6 riders. I posted earlier in the thread that the peleton played poker with the Dutch - At the end of the day, there are probably another 20 or 30 riders in the peleton who if they were in Kieserhoff's position would win the gold medal.
 
Yes, I still think out of all the riders in the top 10 she was probably the least deserving bronze medalist (based purely on how she raced today). No attacks before the very end, no pulling or closing anything down, just sucking wheels for 136 point something km.
And then forcing me to look at that awful Pac-Man jersey on the podium didn't make it better.

But she is definitely a great rider and congratulations are of course in order.
If only Cille had been straight onto Kasia's wheel in the final instead of bringing the group with her, it could perhaps have ended differently, though they probably would have been caught by Van Vleuten ayway.
ELB is one of the most attacking riders in the pro peloton and in most cases she gets nothing in return for those attacks. Sometimes it makes sense to just sit on wheels, especially on a route which is terrible for you and your teammates.
 
Who do you reckon should've been the second, out of interest? I mean obviously Deignan is a no-brainer pick, but with Dani Rowe, Pooley and most of the previous generation retiring, there's not as much depth in the options as I thought there was. I'm looking at the next highest-ranked Britons in the rankings and you've got the Barnes sisters (possibilities, Hannah is more experienced, Alice a bit more all-round) and Anna Henderson (no more experienced than Shackley and less suited to the terrain). Shackley hasn't done much racing in the last couple of months either, so her form would be guesswork. I would think, though, that because Shackley did such a great job at Imola they backed her to do a similar job here.

My thought would have been Lizzy Banks, she's solid over all terrain, quite experienced and a strong stagehunter, so she would fit best perhaps?

The Barnes sisters were no brainers while Banks is still recovering from concussion - The English selectors chose Shackley for development reasons which is what Australia did with Gigante who has been injured since Fleche Wallone - You can choose cyclists for development reasons at the World's which have bigger teams - Anyway there will be equal numbers of men and women at the next Olympics.
 

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