Bigger Achievement: Rio or Doha?

[luckyboy]

Usually I would say the Worlds but this year it is easily the Olympics, and only because of the course.
Normally I would place any Monument over the Olympics as well.

 

[PremierAndrew]

Re: Re:

Olympic medals are not important in sports with their own audience and with significant events and traditions of their own. It's a nice thing to have one, but ultimately its significance within cycling is more akin to having a track medal or a BMX medal than it is like winning the WCRR.

I don't think road cycling is that big a sport though.

The olympics are perhaps the only occasion a very large global audience gets to see it, especially with its status as the first gold medal of the games.

The road worlds are in September, when all the usual big sports people generally care about (mainly football) are going again so these people no longer care about cycling.

Look at how when Rui Costa won the world championships, this was treated as an accomplishment inferior to a portugese tennis player winning tennis's equivalent of the tour of egypt. No one cared about it.

I think a larger number of people would know who Rui costa is if he wins the olympics. I don't think Samu would have had anywhere near the same legacy if he won in Varese rather than Beijing.

And even within cycling winning the olympics means you get called the "olympic champion" every single time your name is called, for 4 whole years, not just 1

If we're measuring success by exposure, well the winner of the final stage of the Tour is more successful than the winner of Roubaix, or any of the other monuments for that matter. A larger number of people know Greipel than Gilbert, which says a lot

The WC continues to have the rainbow bands on their sleeve for the rest of their career as well, unlike the Olympic Champion, and of course your sponsor gets more attention if you're the only one in the peloton wearing the rainbow jersey, whereas the Olympic Champion gets a small indication on their jersey

 

[El Pistolero]

Re: Re:

Olympic medals are not important in sports with their own audience and with significant events and traditions of their own. It's a nice thing to have one, but ultimately its significance within cycling is more akin to having a track medal or a BMX medal than it is like winning the WCRR.

I don't think road cycling is that big a sport though.

The olympics are perhaps the only occasion a very large global audience gets to see it, especially with its status as the first gold medal of the games.

The road worlds are in September, when all the usual big sports people generally care about (mainly football) are going again so these people no longer care about cycling.

Look at how when Rui Costa won the world championships, this was treated as an accomplishment inferior to a portugese tennis player winning tennis's equivalent of the tour of egypt. No one cared about it.

I think a larger number of people would know who Rui costa is if he wins the olympics. I don't think Samu would have had anywhere near the same legacy if he won in Varese rather than Beijing.

And even within cycling winning the olympics means you get called the "olympic champion" every single time your name is called, for 4 whole years, not just 1

If we're measuring success by exposure, well the winner of the final stage of the Tour is more successful than the winner of Roubaix, or any of the other monuments for that matter. A larger number of people know Greipel than Gilbert, which says a lot

The WC continues to have the rainbow bands on their sleeve for the rest of their career as well, unlike the Olympic Champion, and of course your sponsor gets more attention if you're the only one in the peloton wearing the rainbow jersey, whereas the Olympic Champion gets a small indication on their jersey

Greipel has less twitter followers than Gilbert.

 

[Red Rick]

Olympic champion is more og than world champion though

 

[PremierAndrew]

Re: Re:

Olympic medals are not important in sports with their own audience and with significant events and traditions of their own. It's a nice thing to have one, but ultimately its significance within cycling is more akin to having a track medal or a BMX medal than it is like winning the WCRR.

I don't think road cycling is that big a sport though.

The olympics are perhaps the only occasion a very large global audience gets to see it, especially with its status as the first gold medal of the games.

The road worlds are in September, when all the usual big sports people generally care about (mainly football) are going again so these people no longer care about cycling.

Look at how when Rui Costa won the world championships, this was treated as an accomplishment inferior to a portugese tennis player winning tennis's equivalent of the tour of egypt. No one cared about it.

I think a larger number of people would know who Rui costa is if he wins the olympics. I don't think Samu would have had anywhere near the same legacy if he won in Varese rather than Beijing.

And even within cycling winning the olympics means you get called the "olympic champion" every single time your name is called, for 4 whole years, not just 1

If we're measuring success by exposure, well the winner of the final stage of the Tour is more successful than the winner of Roubaix, or any of the other monuments for that matter. A larger number of people know Greipel than Gilbert, which says a lot

The WC continues to have the rainbow bands on their sleeve for the rest of their career as well, unlike the Olympic Champion, and of course your sponsor gets more attention if you're the only one in the peloton wearing the rainbow jersey, whereas the Olympic Champion gets a small indication on their jersey

Greipel has less twitter followers than Gilbert.

Kittel has more than both if that's how you're measuring it

 

[The Hitch]

Re: Re:

Olympic medals are not important in sports with their own audience and with significant events and traditions of their own. It's a nice thing to have one, but ultimately its significance within cycling is more akin to having a track medal or a BMX medal than it is like winning the WCRR.

I don't think road cycling is that big a sport though.

Afaik, the Tour is the biggest (measured by viewers, iirc) annual sporting event in the world.

Of all events, only OG and the football WC are bigger.

Firstly, only if you exclude the vast majority of sporting competition from the definition of "event". Things like the Champions League, about 10 different national football leagues at least, the NBA, NHL, MLB and of course NFL are sports competitions infinately more popular than the TDF will ever be.

That's before taking into account that 1 off events like certain boxing matches and the tennis and gold grand slams pack a very strong punch worldwide.

Secondly, what figures exactly are these.

The TDF claims that 3.5 billion people watch the tour de france, but I challenge anyone not to laugh when reading that figure. Honestly, creationists who say the world is 6000 years old are probably closer to the actual age of the earth than whoever invented that number is to the actual annual TdF viewership. Do 3.5 billion people even own tv's? Do 3.5 billion people even know the TDF exists?

 

[PremierAndrew]

Re: Re:

Olympic medals are not important in sports with their own audience and with significant events and traditions of their own. It's a nice thing to have one, but ultimately its significance within cycling is more akin to having a track medal or a BMX medal than it is like winning the WCRR.

I don't think road cycling is that big a sport though.

Afaik, the Tour is the biggest (measured by viewers, iirc) annual sporting event in the world.

Of all events, only OG and the football WC are bigger.

Firstly, only if you exclude the vast majority of sporting competition from the definition of "event". Things like the Champions League, about 10 different national football leagues at least, the NBA, NHL, MLB and of course NFL are sports competitions infinately more popular than the TDF will ever be.

That's before taking into account that 1 off events like certain boxing matches and the tennis and gold grand slams pack a very strong punch worldwide.

Secondly, what figures exactly are these.

The TDF claims that 3.5 billion people watch the tour de france, but I challenge anyone not to laugh when reading that figure. Honestly, creationists who say the world is 6000 years old are probably closer to the actual age of the earth than whoever invented that number is to the actual annual TdF viewership. Do 3.5 billion people even own tv's? Do 3.5 billion people even know the TDF exists?

It's 3.5 Billion, but that's counting someone who watches every single stage as 21 viewers.

 

[The Hitch]

Re: Re:

Olympic medals are not important in sports with their own audience and with significant events and traditions of their own. It's a nice thing to have one, but ultimately its significance within cycling is more akin to having a track medal or a BMX medal than it is like winning the WCRR.

I don't think road cycling is that big a sport though.

The olympics are perhaps the only occasion a very large global audience gets to see it, especially with its status as the first gold medal of the games.

The road worlds are in September, when all the usual big sports people generally care about (mainly football) are going again so these people no longer care about cycling.

Look at how when Rui Costa won the world championships, this was treated as an accomplishment inferior to a portugese tennis player winning tennis's equivalent of the tour of egypt. No one cared about it.

I think a larger number of people would know who Rui costa is if he wins the olympics. I don't think Samu would have had anywhere near the same legacy if he won in Varese rather than Beijing.

And even within cycling winning the olympics means you get called the "olympic champion" every single time your name is called, for 4 whole years, not just 1

Somewhat Anglocentric view, isn't it? It's the 'national' sport of Flanders, a huge deal in Brittany, important in the Basque Country...
People care about the WCs there, and cycling is indisputably a major sport in those regions.

Well Petanque is the national sport of France, so to say its a national sport isn't saying much. Its supposedly a "national sport" in Colombia too but I haven't met a Colombian yet who has any real knowledge of Quintana, even though they would all to a man jump off mount bolivar if that's what james rodriguez asked them to do.

I understand its bigger in Flanders but its still at best only a second sport and that was while Belgium was *** at football. Now that they actually won 2 matches with the refs help against 5th level teams its already getting 10x the attention cycling could ever dream of. And Flanders, together with the other 2 regions is very small with not many people at all

 

[The Hitch]

Re: Re:

Olympic medals are not important in sports with their own audience and with significant events and traditions of their own. It's a nice thing to have one, but ultimately its significance within cycling is more akin to having a track medal or a BMX medal than it is like winning the WCRR.

I don't think road cycling is that big a sport though.

Afaik, the Tour is the biggest (measured by viewers, iirc) annual sporting event in the world.

Of all events, only OG and the football WC are bigger.

Firstly, only if you exclude the vast majority of sporting competition from the definition of "event". Things like the Champions League, about 10 different national football leagues at least, the NBA, NHL, MLB and of course NFL are sports competitions infinately more popular than the TDF will ever be.

That's before taking into account that 1 off events like certain boxing matches and the tennis and gold grand slams pack a very strong punch worldwide.

Secondly, what figures exactly are these.

The TDF claims that 3.5 billion people watch the tour de france, but I challenge anyone not to laugh when reading that figure. Honestly, creationists who say the world is 6000 years old are probably closer to the actual age of the earth than whoever invented that number is to the actual annual TdF viewership. Do 3.5 billion people even own tv's? Do 3.5 billion people even know the TDF exists?

It's 3.5 Billion, but that's counting someone who watches every single stage as 21 viewers.

Even then I'd dispute it. 3.5/21 is around 180 million people worldwide watching every stage. The super bowl doesn't get a global audience of 180 million, how do boring Sprint stages of the tour get that. I spent 2 tdfs of the contador era in Spain and it was a nightmare to find a pub that would broadcast it. That's in a cycling heartland country, 1 of the 3 to have a gt

 

[PremierAndrew]

Re: Re:

Even then I'd dispute it. 3.5/21 is around 180 million people worldwide watching every stage. The super bowl doesn't get a global audience of 180 million, how do boring Sprint stages of the tour get that. I spent 2 tdfs of the contador era in Spain and it was a nightmare to find a pub that would broadcast it. That's in a cycling heartland country, 1 of the 3 to have a gt

Yea I doubt it's true, but it's not as ridiculous as 3.5 billion at least

 

[mavmav]

They count everything with that 3.5 billion number. That's not 21x the viewers of a stage. It, quite litterely, means 3.5 billion people saw a flash of the TdF. It could be 4 seconds, it could be a minute. It might not even have a bike in it. It could just be pictures of one of the road decorations... And the people that do watch all the stages are counted 21x as if it's different people each stage. So the 3.5 billion is probably not even half when not counting doubles and then more then half of that didn't see more then 5 minutes.

I'm pretty sure pictures of the Hoogerland/Flecha crash a few years back reached a billion people that day. And the TdF will be proud to announce it like that, but that doesn't mean a billion people watch that stage...

 

[PremierAndrew]

Re:

They count everything with that 3.5 billion number. That's not 21x the viewers of a stage. It, quite litterely, means 3.5 billion people saw a flash of the TdF. It could be 4 seconds, it could be a minute. It might not even have a bike in it. It could just be pictures of one of the road decorations... And the people that do watch all the stages are counted 21x as if it's different people each stage. So the 3.5 billion is probably not even half when not counting doubles and then more then half of that didn't see more then 5 minutes.

I'm pretty sure pictures of the Hoogerland/Flecha crash a few years back reached a billion people that day. And the TdF will be proud to announce it like that, but that doesn't mean a billion people watch that stage...

 

[toolittle]

Re: Re:

They count everything with that 3.5 billion number. That's not 21x the viewers of a stage. It, quite litterely, means 3.5 billion people saw a flash of the TdF. It could be 4 seconds, it could be a minute. It might not even have a bike in it. It could just be pictures of one of the road decorations... And the people that do watch all the stages are counted 21x as if it's different people each stage. So the 3.5 billion is probably not even half when not counting doubles and then more then half of that didn't see more then 5 minutes.

I'm pretty sure pictures of the Hoogerland/Flecha crash a few years back reached a billion people that day. And the TdF will be proud to announce it like that, but that doesn't mean a billion people watch that stage...

For most of top bicycle brands, Olympic RR is more important than WC RR.
See the ways bicycle brands handle Olympic and WC. You will know which one is more important.

 

[The Hitch]

Re:

They count everything with that 3.5 billion number. That's not 21x the viewers of a stage. It, quite litterely, means 3.5 billion people saw a flash of the TdF. It could be 4 seconds, it could be a minute. It might not even have a bike in it. It could just be pictures of one of the road decorations... And the people that do watch all the stages are counted 21x as if it's different people each stage. So the 3.5 billion is probably not even half when not counting doubles and then more then half of that didn't see more then 5 minutes.

I'm pretty sure pictures of the Hoogerland/Flecha crash a few years back reached a billion people that day. And the TdF will be proud to announce it like that, but that doesn't mean a billion people watch that stage...

There is no way to quantify how many people saw a glimpse of the TDF.

Organizers exaggerate things out of proportion all the time. Because there's no one to check them on it. EG in cycling the TDU and TOC claimed to be as big as the Giro and Vuelta. The Giro itself claimed there were 1 million people on Zoncolan. I remember the organizer of one of the asian races, think it was lanqawi maybe saying that the race will be as big as the TDF in a few years and San luis was saying the same. The olympics and Fifa constantly make various claims about making the world a better place, FIFA tried to act like it was lifting Africa out of poverty by hosting a world cup there.

The TDF does the same when they invent a totally unrealistic figure, to try and make their event sound a lot more important than it actually is

 

[mavmav]

I wasn't defending the 3.5 billion number. On the contrary. Merely saying how they come to those numbers and why it's marketing BS...

 

[BigMac]

Re:

..has UCI stated any justifiable reason for choosing....doha for WC...like? FREE carbon

frame for every licence holder.......?

this year rio more important....normally WCs

Mark L

Don't have to. Just the highest bidder.

Like football.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Re: Re:

Olympic medals are not important in sports with their own audience and with significant events and traditions of their own. It's a nice thing to have one, but ultimately its significance within cycling is more akin to having a track medal or a BMX medal than it is like winning the WCRR.

I don't think road cycling is that big a sport though.

Well that's the core of the argument. If you think that road cycling belongs with curling and track cycling and target shooting, then of course the Olympics is the main event. If you think it belongs with tennis and golf and boxing and baseball then an Olympic medal is a relatively minor bauble.

In my view the dividing line is whether or not there's a reasonably significant audience for the sport independent of the Olympics. You don't have to swallow the marketing drivel about the viewership of the Tour de France to see that there is a significant audience there, of the sort that supports a large professional circuit, where top events get more than novelty coverage in sports pages, where some individual races of particular significance bring hundreds of thousands of people out to watch in person, where it's actually even one of the truly massive sports in a few countries and regions. It's not football, but it's also not rowing or three day eventing.

Olympic sports are ones which basically have little noticeable existence as a spectator sport outside of the Olympics. That's just not true of road cycling. Hundreds and hundreds of hours of it are broadcast around the world on sports networks, smaller but still significant amounts on more mainstream broadcasters. Big winners are medium size sports celebrities and not only briefly every four years. People who have never raced a bike care about it. It's not one of the biggest mass spectator sports, despite the ASO's pretensions, but it is a mass spectator sport.

On two side notes:

1) I don't think that "Olympic winner" really does make you a big deal in cycling for the next four years. We only have one example to look at in recent times in Samu Sanchez, given that Vino quickly retired. Samu's Olympic win was referred to reasonably regularly, but that's because, to be blunt, he didn't actually win much else of significance. It actually was his biggest win, but that doesn't say much because much as I like him he was an underachiever in the big races. To balance that, I honestly couldn't even tell you without looking it up who won the Olympic TT last time or indeed any time. And while I'm by no means the kind of fountain of knowledge about races past that some are here, the mere fact that I'm posting on this forum at all is an indication that I'm quite a bit more interested in that kind of thing than 95% of cycling fans.

2) On its own merits, I think that Rio has the potential to be one of the most interesting races of the year. A one day race with small teams, significant climbing and a very good cast of climbers and puncheurs contesting it. I'm genuinely looking forward to it as a race.

3) This isn't directly relevant to this thread, but I very slightly downgrade both the WCRR and the ORR for having uneven team numbers.

 

[Bardamu]

Re: Re:

Olympic medals are not important in sports with their own audience and with significant events and traditions of their own. It's a nice thing to have one, but ultimately its significance within cycling is more akin to having a track medal or a BMX medal than it is like winning the WCRR.

I don't think road cycling is that big a sport though.

Well that's the core of the argument. If you think that road cycling belongs with curling and track cycling and target shooting, then of course the Olympics is the main event. If you think it belongs with tennis and golf and boxing and baseball then an Olympic medal is a relatively minor bauble.

In my view the dividing line is whether or not there's a reasonably significant audience for the sport independent of the Olympics. You don't have to swallow the marketing drivel about the viewership of the Tour de France to see that there is a significant audience there, of the sort that supports a large professional circuit, where top events get more than novelty coverage in sports pages, where some individual races of particular significance bring hundreds of thousands of people out to watch in person, where it's actually even one of the truly massive sports in a few countries and regions. It's not football, but it's also not rowing or three day eventing.

Olympic sports are ones which basically have little noticeable existence as a spectator sport outside of the Olympics. That's just not true of road cycling. Hundreds and hundreds of hours of it are broadcast around the world on sports networks, smaller but still significant amounts on more mainstream broadcasters. Big winners are medium size sports celebrities and not only briefly every four years. People who have never raced a bike care about it. It's not one of the biggest mass spectator sports, despite the ASO's pretensions, but it is a mass spectator sport.

On two side notes:

1) I don't think that "Olympic winner" really does make you a big deal in cycling for the next four years. We only have one example to look at in recent times in Samu Sanchez, given that Vino quickly retired. Samu's Olympic win was referred to reasonably regularly, but that's because, to be blunt, he didn't actually win much else of significance. It actually was his biggest win, but that doesn't say much because much as I like him he was an underachiever in the big races. To balance that, I honestly couldn't even tell you without looking it up who won the Olympic TT last time or indeed any time. And while I'm by no means the kind of fountain of knowledge about races past that some are here, the mere fact that I'm posting on this forum at all is an indication that I'm quite a bit more interested in that kind of thing than 95% of cycling fans.

2) On its own merits, I think that Rio has the potential to be one of the most interesting races of the year. A one day race with small teams, significant climbing and a very good cast of climbers and puncheurs contesting it. I'm genuinely looking forward to it as a race.

3) This isn't directly relevant to this thread, but I very slightly downgrade both the WCRR and the ORR for having uneven team numbers.

I believe Olympic TT winners are more known than WC TT winners.

 

[The Hitch]

Re: Re:

Olympic medals are not important in sports with their own audience and with significant events and traditions of their own. It's a nice thing to have one, but ultimately its significance within cycling is more akin to having a track medal or a BMX medal than it is like winning the WCRR.

I don't think road cycling is that big a sport though.

Well that's the core of the argument. If you think that road cycling belongs with curling and track cycling and target shooting, then of course the Olympics is the main event. If you think it belongs with tennis and golf and boxing and baseball then an Olympic medal is a relatively minor bauble.

In my view the dividing line is whether or not there's a reasonably significant audience for the sport independent of the Olympics. You don't have to swallow the marketing drivel about the viewership of the Tour de France to see that there is a significant audience there, of the sort that supports a large professional circuit, where top events get more than novelty coverage in sports pages, where some individual races of particular significance bring hundreds of thousands of people out to watch in person, where it's actually even one of the truly massive sports in a few countries and regions. It's not football, but it's also not rowing or three day eventing.

Olympic sports are ones which basically have little noticeable existence as a spectator sport outside of the Olympics. That's just not true of road cycling. Hundreds and hundreds of hours of it are broadcast around the world on sports networks, smaller but still significant amounts on more mainstream broadcasters. Big winners are medium size sports celebrities and not only briefly every four years. People who have never raced a bike care about it. It's not one of the biggest mass spectator sports, despite the ASO's pretensions, but it is a mass spectator sport.

On two side notes:

1) I don't think that "Olympic winner" really does make you a big deal in cycling for the next four years. We only have one example to look at in recent times in Samu Sanchez, given that Vino quickly retired. Samu's Olympic win was referred to reasonably regularly, but that's because, to be blunt, he didn't actually win much else of significance. It actually was his biggest win, but that doesn't say much because much as I like him he was an underachiever in the big races. To balance that, I honestly couldn't even tell you without looking it up who won the Olympic TT last time or indeed any time. And while I'm by no means the kind of fountain of knowledge about races past that some are here, the mere fact that I'm posting on this forum at all is an indication that I'm quite a bit more interested in that kind of thing than 95% of cycling fans.

2) On its own merits, I think that Rio has the potential to be one of the most interesting races of the year. A one day race with small teams, significant climbing and a very good cast of climbers and puncheurs contesting it. I'm genuinely looking forward to it as a race.

3) This isn't directly relevant to this thread, but I very slightly downgrade both the WCRR and the ORR for having uneven team numbers.

Wiggins won the olympic tt. And won brits sports personality of the year that year. And while obviously that was largely because of his TDF, consider the fact that Cancellara never won the Swiss sports award any of the 4 years he was world champ, but he did get it the year he was olympic champ.

 

[Red Rick]

Re: Re:

Olympic medals are not important in sports with their own audience and with significant events and traditions of their own. It's a nice thing to have one, but ultimately its significance within cycling is more akin to having a track medal or a BMX medal than it is like winning the WCRR.

I don't think road cycling is that big a sport though.

Well that's the core of the argument. If you think that road cycling belongs with curling and track cycling and target shooting, then of course the Olympics is the main event. If you think it belongs with tennis and golf and boxing and baseball then an Olympic medal is a relatively minor bauble.

In my view the dividing line is whether or not there's a reasonably significant audience for the sport independent of the Olympics. You don't have to swallow the marketing drivel about the viewership of the Tour de France to see that there is a significant audience there, of the sort that supports a large professional circuit, where top events get more than novelty coverage in sports pages, where some individual races of particular significance bring hundreds of thousands of people out to watch in person, where it's actually even one of the truly massive sports in a few countries and regions. It's not football, but it's also not rowing or three day eventing.

Olympic sports are ones which basically have little noticeable existence as a spectator sport outside of the Olympics. That's just not true of road cycling. Hundreds and hundreds of hours of it are broadcast around the world on sports networks, smaller but still significant amounts on more mainstream broadcasters. Big winners are medium size sports celebrities and not only briefly every four years. People who have never raced a bike care about it. It's not one of the biggest mass spectator sports, despite the ASO's pretensions, but it is a mass spectator sport.

On two side notes:

1) I don't think that "Olympic winner" really does make you a big deal in cycling for the next four years. We only have one example to look at in recent times in Samu Sanchez, given that Vino quickly retired. Samu's Olympic win was referred to reasonably regularly, but that's because, to be blunt, he didn't actually win much else of significance. It actually was his biggest win, but that doesn't say much because much as I like him he was an underachiever in the big races. To balance that, I honestly couldn't even tell you without looking it up who won the Olympic TT last time or indeed any time. And while I'm by no means the kind of fountain of knowledge about races past that some are here, the mere fact that I'm posting on this forum at all is an indication that I'm quite a bit more interested in that kind of thing than 95% of cycling fans.

2) On its own merits, I think that Rio has the potential to be one of the most interesting races of the year. A one day race with small teams, significant climbing and a very good cast of climbers and puncheurs contesting it. I'm genuinely looking forward to it as a race.

3) This isn't directly relevant to this thread, but I very slightly downgrade both the WCRR and the ORR for having uneven team numbers.

Wiggins won the olympic tt. And won brits sports personality of the year that year. And while obviously that was largely because of his TDF, consider the fact that Cancellara never won the Swiss sports award any of the 4 years he was world champ, but he did get it the year he was olympic champ.

You may want to consider that Federer won 3 slams a year two of those years you mentioned.

 

[This Charming Man]

Olympic Road race will be a fabulous race, full of surprizes. Many top drawer riders are coveting it. I expect great support for the race, by the brasil peoples. Good to see interest in the middle eat too, so sad the repression there.

 

[williamp78]

To twist the question a little;

Which is bigger?

Being Olympic champ is bigger to the general public.
Being World champ is bigger to the cycling fan.

Nicole Cooke won both within a few weeks of each other in 2008; can someone ask her to settle this!?

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Nicole Cooke won both within a few weeks of each other in 2008; can someone ask her to settle this!?

Women's cycling isn't a medium size mass spectator sport. Therefore, we would expect the Olympics to rank more highly within it.

Plus there is the overlapping issue that women's sports are in general treated more equally at the Olympics than almost anywhere else (tennis is the only major sport where women get anything like equal treatment, while it is quite common in "Olympic sports"). Nationalism and the reflected glory of shiny medals trumps even sexism.

 

[Mr.White]

They're equal in my book. WC is bigger for cycling only, but Olympics is bigger generally in sport. I think it's a draw

 

[jmdirt]

I've read three rider interviews this week that said that the Olympics are more important than Worlds, and a forth said that second and third mean something at the Olys, but nothing at Worlds.