Olympic Women's Road Race

[auscyclefan94]

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[Don't be late Pedro]

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edit: The preview answers my question...

 

[The Sheep]

Holland need to dump their usual tactic of keeping everything together and make this race hard so Vos or van Vlueten can win.

 

[JibberJim]

I don't follow the Womens circuit. Who are the favourites, or at least, the riders to look out for?

Cycling news preview has the main people.

What I think will happen: Not much until Pooley and/or Stevens go very hard up Staple lane - (about 40km into the race?) Holland and Italy will cover that. Pooley and Stevens and others will continue to keep attacking on Box and every other time the road goes up trying to make the race hard. If Vos chooses to go with them then it may split up a lot, or it could be just Italy/Holland keeping the group together which is probably only ~30 riders anyway.

I expect a bunch sprint from that 30 riders, with Bronzini managing to beat Vos. It won't be trains though and expect a late charge from someone (Cooke?) to be caught close to the line.

I would now like GB to miss out on any medal, just to see more atrociously inane and inappropriate commentary from the BBC interviewers. Or maybe it would be more interesting to see how they deal with success?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Shame they've gone for the more Tourist route, meaning only 2 laps of Box Hill. There was some discussion of having the women start out of town so they could do more laps of it and make the race a bit tougher. As it is, it's going to be tough for the likes of Pooley and Stevens. I still think that they, or maybe Guderzo, will be the ones to force the selection there though, with a strong group of 15-20 away. The Netherlands will pull the usual trick of giving everybody else a dilemma - "do we let van Vleuten ride away, or do we chase her down and leave ourselves facing a fresh Vos?" but this time they'll be joined by a whole bunch of constant attackers.

If it comes to a sprint, then Vos, Bronzini, Armitstead, Teutenberg and Olds are the ones I expect up there, while Podium Café also mentions the Cuban, but she's a track cyclist and I don't know anything about her. However, I expect a lot of people who either don't want a sprint, or have a vested interest in reducing the number of people in a sprint, to be on the move a lot, bringing people like Arndt, Johansson, Pooley, van Vleuten, Villumsen, Guderzo, Stevens and Ferrand-Prévot into play.

 

[fluffkitten]

Pity its only twice up the hill. Even so it should be an interesting race.

(pity I won't be able to watch)

 

[Zam_Olyas]

 

[User Guide]

MY prediction.....
1,TMEP/Stevens too try on box hill
2,Clara Hughes to be joined by Arndt in two woman break
3, bunch sprint won by Bronzini,Vos missing out again
4, Lizzie the big I am but havent really done much in the peleton to blame everyone else mostly Nicole Cooke

Hope im wrong as a brit but Armistead had better get a move on as theres plenty of young womens talent including the jnr world champion waiting too take her place.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I have convinced myself Emma Johansson will take a medal, but no idea what colour.

 

[Zam_Olyas]

MY prediction.....
1,TMEP/Stevens too try on box hill
2,Clara Hughes to be joined by Arndt in two woman break
3, bunch sprint won by Bronzini,Vos missing out again
4, Lizzie the big I am but havent really done much in the peleton to blame everyone else mostly Nicole Cooke

Hope im wrong as a brit but Armistead had better get a move on as theres plenty of young womens talent including the jnr world champion waiting too take her place.

How and when did this Armistead and Cooke problem starts?

 

[User Guide]

How and when did this Armistead and Cooke problem starts?

Cooke pretty much did it all herself before the talent ID programs and all the £££ so is a bit of an outsider and a little single minded.Cant put my finger on which race but word was cooke didnt ride for Armistead as hard as she could, compared to how Pooley/Laws rode in the Olympics.
So she was easy target to blame after Lizzies failure @ the worlds but to be fair too Cooke she did the right thing Lizzie got in a bad position/lost ground crucial time.
Also in national championships its basically been Cooke versus the rest of what was cervelo now leo aa drinks ,which cant of helped matters.

 

[Euskaltel!]

Looking forward to watching this, been wanting to watch some women's cycling for a while, but this is the first thing that's been live on domestic telly...

 

[canyonball]

4, Lizzie the big I am but havent really done much in the peleton to blame everyone else mostly Nicole Cooke

Hope im wrong as a brit but Armistead had better get a move on as theres plenty of young womens talent including the jnr world champion waiting too take her place.

She said after the Copenhagen Worlds Cooke has ever worked for herself. Whether Cooke did a proper lead out/Teamwork in that finish is for one to judge. The images are out there.

Anyway...

She has since apologized for bringing it to the journos and asked several times for the issue to be closed. They discussed it within Team GB and that's that. The British press is the one that needs to move on as they bring the question every time they interview her.

 

[JibberJim]

So rain already on the course apparently, earlier than expected, so expect now possibly wet roads and miserable conditions. A crash on Coombe bottom is very likely it's a pretty bad descent in the wet, wrongly cambered 20%+ 90 dgree bend near the top and can be very gravelly sharp left hander further down.

 

[Montanus]

Cheering for Emma today. I'm certain she will be fighting for the medals. She is in great shape and looked very lean when interviewed on swedish tv:

She was determined in the interview too: anything else than gold will not do!

 

[User Guide]

Looking forward to watching this, been wanting to watch some women's cycling for a while, but this is the first thing that's been live on domestic telly...

Womens cycling in general is much more exciting with the smaller teams and shorter courses.That being said the course today is really neutered.
Ps the womens race in Varese was the race that got me back into the sport of cycling one of best races ive seen, best riders in the world at the death slugging it out epic stuff

 

[DominicDecoco]

I'll watch this with an open mind. But I'm not watching another 'WC2011-womens race' again. That's for sure.

 

[Mellow Velo]

I'll watch this with an open mind. But I'm not watching another 'WC2011-womens race' again. That's for sure.

I'm not optimistic, having watched the recent Giro Donne.
The flatter stages were a dead loss; unable to establish breaks and a lot of looking at each other, while riding en bloc.

Not sure what twice up Box can do to animate things.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

This might be better off given the smaller teams (even by women's standards) though. Even the best have only got 3 helpers and given the strength of some of the teams, there aren't really any 'domestiques' per se for most riders - Vos doesn't need them, but Annemiek van V and Loes Gunnewijk are hardly slouches to be wasted on domestiquing, while Wild is a good sprinter; the Italy team features Bronzini as probably leader, as reigning double World Champion, but Guderzo won the title before her, with Cantele picking up two medals in Mendrisio too, and Baccaille's a multiple national champion who's no slouch in a sprint either; Armitstead is the best sprinter in the UK team, but Pooley is liable to attack as is Cooke; Teutenberg is Germany's obvious sprinter, but Judith Arndt is threatening from any situation, Becker's a hard worker and Trixi Worrack can't really be relied on to ride as a domestique because the book of tactics she bought was written by Vino and just consisted of the word "ATTACK" on every page.

The riders could all be unsure about expending energy early and it get very cagey, or the attacks could start early and it be complete and utter chaos. Probably no middle ground.

One thing though - so far in recent years the major women's races have reflected an exaggeration of the men's. 2011 Copenhagen was godawful, 2010 Geelong was pretty decent, while 2008 Beijing, Varese and 2009 Mendrisio were great races. This bodes well given that the men's race was more exciting than it had any right to be, but on the other hand this is the first time the course has been significantly different, in that they've kept all the flat part but removed almost all of the bumps.

Regardless, a lot of people's minds will be made up by anything other than an amazing, endless attack-fest.

 

[User Guide]

I'm not optimistic, having watched the recent Giro Donne.
The flatter stages were a dead loss; unable to establish breaks and a lot of looking at each other, while riding en bloc.

Not sure what twice up Box can do to animate things.

Womens cycling really does need a good race if not a good race at least Vos to win or a brit.
Im a little fearful too though

 

[Irish2009]

Brilliant summary of what may happen by User Guide, the course shouts sprint, and I feel will suit GB's Armistead if her team mates dont go for it on a maverick solo run, Vos and Gb to medal but god knows what colours. And yes Varese was brilliant but Copenhagen was brutal.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Hope Vos will win but this isn't the ideal course

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Hope Vos will win but this isn't the ideal course

"Every race is Vos territory" - Ina-Yoko Teutenberg

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

"Every race is Vos territory" - Ina-Yoko Teutenberg

Yeah, but a course like this leaves more over to chance than other courses. She might win 6/10 on this course.

But if it was a uphill sprint, than it's more likely 8/10

 

[El Pistolero]

Yeah, but a course like this leaves more over to chance than other courses. She might win 6/10 on this course.

But if it was a uphill sprint, than it's more likely 8/10

She just needs to race like Eddy Merckx did and she will win.