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Race thread: Olympics 2020/21 Tokyo, Men's Road Race, 234k

Page 45 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Good point, he’s a Giro winner
:rolleyes:

It's only you who think all disciplines rank equally. Who is the authority on that, anyway? Yeah, they may all feature equally in a medal table but it's not like it's that medal table that is the be-all and end-all of the Olympics...

Of course road cycling is one of the bigger events. Just like tennis singles, 100m running etc.
 
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They are about to hand out more than 300 identical trinkets of identical value almost entirely to people nobody has ever heard of or will ever hear of again outside their own countries. Richard is now a sporting hero in exactly the same way as some guy sitting in the middle of the boat in the coxless fours.
I'll assume you are unaware of the profile that Jefferson Perez has in Ecuador. But you ought to be aware of the acclaim given to the O'Donovan brothers, who got a silver.
 
E7DVIOxXMAMmoBu

Father and his sons.
 
:rolleyes:

It's only you who think all disciplines rank equally. Who is the authority on that, anyway? Yeah, they may all feature equally in a medal table but it's not like it's that medal table that is the be-all and end-all of the Olympics...

Of course road cycling is one of the bigger events. Just like tennis singles, 100m running etc.

The medal table is precisely the be all and end all of the Olympics, why it exists and why anyone cares about it. Every medal a tiny shining monument to national glory. Up to thirty two (32) people will win cycling gold medals in these Olympics alone. Truly the pinnacle of sporting accomplishment.
 
I'll assume you are unaware of the profile that Jefferson Perez has in Ecuador. But you ought to be aware of the acclaim given to the O'Donovan brothers, who got a silver.
I’m well aware of the embarrassing small country burst of pride in a couple of lads doing a sport nobody even pretends to care about. I’m also well aware that it lasted about one week longer than the Olympics and that one month later even most Irish people couldn’t have picked the O’Donovan brothers out of a police line up.

Even at the time, much of the local interest was prefaced by “who even knew that people other than English public school boys did that sport?”. A little later, outside of the context of this thread, which serves as a reminder, if you’d asked me who the O’Donovan brothers were, I’d have been more likely to guess failed 90s boyband or minor 1960s Manchester gangsters.

As for Jefferson Perez and his status in Ecuador, that’s more or less my point. Well done Richard Carapaz, you are as legendary as a race walker now.
 
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He keeps praising Fuglsang though.
For instance, he wanted to make an avatar bet with me, rather aggressively, simply because i said, after the first week of the Tour, that there were still too many riders in contention for the podium at that point, that i didn't automatically assume a certain Danish rider, unproven in GT's at that point, would be on the podium. Even though i continued that i didn't think it was impossible, he then suggested to turn it into a signature bet. But i'm sure he does that for every unproven GT rider with an outside shot at a podium.

Ah, but an interpretation could be that it's because I'm anti-Belgium. Who knows.

Because he was the strongest rider with the best sprint. The responsibility to keep it together is his.
So he should singlehandedly have responded to every attack of a group that at that time consisted of 20 riders.
Or, could it be, that he had already dug that deep that he couldn't respond to the last attack? Or that he thought it was not in his best interest to keep responding to every attack, considering another attack would simply follow anyway, and that he would need to stop wasting energy, and gamble on somebody else doing "some" of the work? What do you think.
 
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So he should singlehandedly have responded to every attack of a group that at that time consisted of 20 riders.
Or, could it be, that he had already dug that deep that he couldn't respond to the last attack? Or that he thought it was not in his best interest to keep responding to every attack, considering another attack would simply follow anyway, and that he would need to stop wasting energy, and gamble on somebody else doing "some" of the work? What do you think.
First, that you should take that count one more time. Second, if he is going to chase down the pair later anyway (which he did and he got quite close), it would be easier if he handed them less free time to start with before chasing. Third, that if he wanted to spare himself it would have been better to let one of the earlier attacks by a single rider get some room (Fuglsang and Woods would have been far easier to chase down) and keep that rider at a controllable distance, instead of closing most moves down but then suddenly let the most dangerous one get a lot of time for free.
 
If anyone would prefer to read the exchange themselves and not rely on Logic's account of it see here. Notice already the moving goalposts. It was whether or not Vingegaard was a podium contender. After stage 7, I thought he was, Logic didn't (but Lopez was more likely, apparently).

(Lol, very aggressive suggestion by me to have a signature bet. It's a shame though that avatar bets are not common any more like they used to be on here)
 
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I’m well aware of the embarrassing small country burst of pride in a couple of lads doing a sport nobody even pretends to care about. I’m also well aware that it lasted about one week longer than the Olympics and that one month later even most Irish people couldn’t have picked the O’Donovan brothers out of a police line up.

Even at the time, much of the local interest was prefaced by “who even knew that people other than English public school boys did that sport?”. A little later, outside of the context of this thread, which serves as a reminder, if you’d asked me who the O’Donovan brothers were, I’d have been more likely to guess failed 90s boyband or minor 1960s Manchester gangsters.

As for Jefferson Perez and his status in Ecuador, that’s more or less my point. Well done Richard Carapaz, you are as legendary as a race walker now.
As legendary as a man considered one of his country's all-time greats: why would you belittle that?

Olympics bring relatively low profile sports like cycling and walking to a wider audience: is that a bad thing?
 
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First, that you should take that count one more time. Second, if he is going to chase down the pair later anyway (which he did and he got quite close), it would be easier if he handed them less free time to start with before chasing. Third, that if he wanted to spare himself it would have been better to let one of the earlier attacks by a single rider get some room (Fuglsang and Woods would have been far easier to chase down) and keep that rider at a controllable distance, instead of closing most moves down but then suddenly let the most dangerous one get a lot of time for free.
The group that got over Mikuni along with or ahead of Van Aert, after he has already led the chase ever since Pogacar attacked, was 13 riders, with the group Moscon, Van Baarle, Yates 2, not far behind. And a single rider a dozen meters behind. That's 19 riders that still all needed to be controlled. Drop the pace, they get back. Don't respond to attacks and wait for others to do the work, and the race can be over. Luckily, you have hindsight 20/20. He gambled, nobody wanted to chase Carapaz/McNulty, so he finally did it himself.

If anyone would prefer to read the exchange themselves and not rely on Logic's account of it see here. Notice already the moving goalposts. It was whether or not Vingegaard was a podium contender. After stage 7, I thought he was, Logic didn't (but Lopez was more likely, apparently).
Thank you for posting this actually. It quite proves my point. The fact that you need to bring it up again, shows how invested you were (/are). Apparently i'm not allowed to have an opinion on a Danish rider's chances without getting harassed with avatar/signature bets.
 
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