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2021 World Championships in Flanders - Time Trials

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How would you then propose they should do it in order to have them race as one team?
I don't.
Have a men's Team Time Trial; have a women's Team Time Trial. On today's evidence, the best national teams for each are Italy and Netherlands, but riders in neither team have gold medals to show for it.

I see no sporting reason to combine them. A sportsperson's results in a team event should be dependent on those meaningfully linked to them in a team effort, not only to those who do a different effort in the same kit, but otherwise, both in competition and training, entirely unrelated to them.
 
Well, the Ryder Cup is one of the most exciting tournaments in golf and has an emotional connection that individual tournaments don't have. Big, big event--and . . . and good individual players don't always do their best in this team event. The fact that there are several pages on here, and folks following on telecasts and twitter tell me that this mixed relay is gaining momentum. The riders sure seem invested.
 
I kinda like this event because some teams being much stronger on one side than on the other adds a bit of spice and makes it a bit unpredictable.
They should probably make it so that they have to hand over a bidon, or just touch eachother like in the XC skiing relay.
It is much better than the old TTT between pro teams, only triathletes seemed to like that one...
 
Tony Martin and Lisa Brennauer are not, in any meaningful sense, teammates: they do not train together, they did not compete together in any real sense, they simply wore the same kit and had their times added together. They probably meet each other more often in formal wear at evening presentation events than they do in cycling clothes.

Otoh, you could probably find several men and women riders who do train together.
 
Well, the Ryder Cup is one of the most exciting tournaments in golf and has an emotional connection that individual tournaments don't have. Big, big event--and . . . and good individual players don't always do their best in this team event. The fact that there are several pages on here, and folks following on telecasts and twitter tell me that this mixed relay is gaining momentum. The riders sure seem invested.
That the best players do not perform well (presumably because they are less invested in it, knowing that their efforts will only have about a 10% impact on the outcome) does not sound like a sporting criterion for favouring an event.
 
Hey, @Armchair cyclist, just thought a bit about your example earlier; wouldn't it make more sense to say it was like a football match where the first half was played by the men's team, and the second by the women's team? After all; unlike with football and icehockey, we're still talking about the same sport. And unlike with cycling, I don't think football players usually train together across the sexes.

But, yeah. two seperate TTTs with, say, four riders per team would be nice. Would also mean more events, with would mean more cycling for me to watch! :D
 
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I don't.
Have a men's Team Time Trial; have a women's Team Time Trial. On today's evidence, the best national teams for each are Italy and Netherlands, but riders in neither team have gold medals to show for it.

I see no sporting reason to combine them. A sportsperson's results in a team event should be dependent on those meaningfully linked to them in a team effort, not only to those who do a different effort in the same kit, but otherwise, both in competition and training, entirely unrelated to them.

You are of course fully allowed to have that opinion. I've been involved with swimming for most of my life and have also been following winter sports and athletics for many years, so the concept of relays, mixed relays and both genders racing against/alongside each other just seems pretty natural to me.

I personally don't believe the trade team/national team TTTs works better as an interesting, regular feature at the WCs (especially not the 100 km version). This event needs time to grow, though it was already a better race today than two years ago. It's an issue that not every country will start their best riders with the RR coming up, but you also sometimes see that in the ITT as well.
 
Hey, @Armchair cyclist, just thought a bit about your example earlier; wouldn't it make more sense to say it was like a football match where the first half was played by the men's team, and the second by the women's team? After all; unlike with football and icehockey, we're still talking about the same sport. And unlike with cycling, I don't think football players usually train together across the sexes.

But, yeah. two seperate TTTs with, say, four riders per team would be nice. Would also mean more events, with would mean more cycling for me to watch! :D
Yeah, that example could have worked just as well; I was trying to bring attention away from it being about the two sexes, just about unrelated efforts. And I had been thinking of hockey rather than ice-hockey, for what it matters.

When do male and female international standard time trialists train together?
 
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I still don't really get it. I mean, isn't the base of every relay that you have "unrelated efforts", that is, that everyone does his part and then it all adds up?
Okay, here it is a team effort - you could also do a simple relay with woman, man, woman, man, but what does it change in terms of related/ unrelated? Are you against relays in cycling in general or against this form?
 
I think relays have no real place in cycling: no tradition, and not much to add as a novelty.

Relays in general are a poor form of team event: there is a real skill in handovers at speed in 4x100m sprinting, but beyond that it is simply a matter of aggregation of individual talent, not teamwork.
Where sport is primarily social, at amateur club level, I can see relays, and adding the results of individual matches, as having a place, but where we are looking at serious elite competition, it simply undervalues the ability of the best and promotes the importance of whoever is the team/nation's 4th(or 6th.or whatever) best athlete (or 2nd best sex).

And in terms of mixed events, racquet sports work, mixed foursomes in golf is tenable, and there are sports designed for the purpose like korfball (although I don't thing I have ever seen that played) . Some sports could be adapted for mixed teams perhaps: where a player is restricted to part of the playing area like netball or volleyball it may be possible to tweak rules such that men are up against men and women against women.
Other sports are suited to unisex competition: darts, snooker, equestrianism, motor sport, there may be others.

But I don't understand the idea, if that is what is at play, that women's sport is best enhanced by being in pseudo-competition with men when that obviously cannot be competitive.
 
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I think this is also one of the reasons why a mixed event makes sense, though?! Most nations would struggle to field a proper 6 (wo)men team, let alone train together, while a 3+3 event is somewhat doable.

Personally I don't mind this kind of mixed event. But reason may also be, that in most other sports it's even worse
The debate about how many riders should be in a men's WC TTT or a women's WC TTT is a different one. I would probably propose 4 in each case, but as separate events.
 
I still don't really get it. I mean, isn't the base of every relay that you have "unrelated efforts", that is, that everyone does his part and then it all adds up?
Okay, here it is a team effort - you could also do a simple relay with woman, man, woman, man, but what does it change in terms of related/ unrelated? Are you against relays in cycling in general or against this form?

On a slightly different note - I think it would be cool/interesting to have a relay over 100km with a mix of flat land and hills with 2 men and 2 women riding solo with the only criteria for who rides what being that it has to be split 50/50 (or at least close to 50/50) between men and women.

That way you can have some interesting tactical selections about who rides which section and in which order. While I actually enjoy the current format, I think adding in an extra layer of tactics would probably make it a more compelling event.
 
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I think it is the disparity between a particular country's men's and women's teams that makes this more interesting. Unlike a normal TTT where the early splits are solid indications of the final order, in this case a strong women's team can make up for a slower splits of the men.
 
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I don't think I am convinced. This is rather like having Belgium play a soccer match against Germany, but whether the team scoring most goals are considered to have won depends on the goals from a later hockey match between the two countries being added on. (to choose two countries competitive at both sports)

Maybe such an event would raise the profile of the hockey teams: maybe it just makes the results of both teams less significant because a) players are less bothered as they learn that their efforts depend on someone who they do not even see during their effort, and b) it is seen as a bit of a gimmick that does not reward the best teams.

Of course one's results in a team event depend on what other members of your team do, but there should be some concert of effort, some physical and practical interaction, and that is totally absent between the two halves of these "teams" in this event.


I am happy for Tony Martin to finish with his Gold Medal, but essentially Italy's men should have gold medals, as should Netherland's women.

I think this is quite an accurate analogy (maybe just a men's and women's football match would have been a bit more on the mark, though, instead of mixing random sports with each other).

Lol, I see the Slowpoke struck again... Apparently, RhD is both old, short and fast.
 
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What about a race on a 10-15 km circuit with one or two climbs, but with a mass start instead of individual start times for each country. Then each rider of the four (or six) does one lap. Then it would be like in all the other endurance sports.

I'm actually quite hot on that idea, that would be a much more intriguing spectacle than what we saw today.

A flat course will of course not work for this to make sense because the first laps would not have any importance to the outcome.
 
What about a race on a 10-15 km circuit with one or two climbs, but with a mass start instead of individual start times for each country. Then each rider of the four (or six) does one lap. Then it would be like in all the other endurance sports.

I'm actually quite hot on that idea, that would be a much more intriguing spectacle than what we saw today.

A flat course will of course not work for this to make sense because the first laps would not have any importance to the outcome.

I wouldn't mind that, but unlike the TTT, it's something which hasn't been part of the sport before. It seems more like a format for a Hammer Series kind of event, at least in the beginning.

And speaking of the Hammer Series, I quite liked the TTT pursuit they did there.
I want to see teams overtake each other, and only Spain came close to that today.
 
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What about a race on a 10-15 km circuit with one or two climbs, but with a mass start instead of individual start times for each country. Then each rider of the four (or six) does one lap. Then it would be like in all the other endurance sports.

I'm actually quite hot on that idea, that would be a much more intriguing spectacle than what we saw today.

A flat course will of course not work for this to make sense because the first laps would not have any importance to the outcome.
The UCI announced today that there will be a team relay in the WC CX in 2022. I assume this will be the concept.
 
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