Since this blog is called Bike-Y, i should recap the weekend's road races. The men's went on Friday night and ended deep into Saturday morning. Both CBC and NBC had great online coverage, where you could watch the entire 245 km race without commercials or commentary. Just the hiss of the bikes...it was pretty neat. It would've been great to have Paul Sherwan and Phil Liggett (who did the US and Australia tv commentary respectively) for the 6.5 hours of racing. For those of you who didnt see the coverage, here is a picture of the race course.
Yep, 7 circuits, each with a giant uphill and downhill! It was set up to be a survival of the fittest, with the heat (32 degrees), humidity (90 percent), and length (longest ever Olympic road race). About an hour into the race, the peloton spelt into 2 groups, with a group of 26 taking charge of the race. This group contained Carlos Sastre, Kim Kirchen, Fabian Cancellera, Oscar Friere, and Canadian Ryder Hesjedal and appeared to put a lot of pressure of the rest of the peloton.
No Americans made the break, so they worked hard for 2 hours to bring the group back together. However, within 15 minutes, and with only 55 km remaining, another power group containing Andy Schleck, Alberto Contador, Christian Vande Velde, and 3 others took off down the road. They too couldn't escape. Finally, Spain (with Contador, Valverde, Sastre, Friere, and Samuel Sanchez) took control of the front of the race, with Italy and Paolo Bettini in second place. It was funny to see Sastre and Contador working up front for Valverde. Cadel Evans and Levi Leipheimer were also lurking (both elite front-of-the-pack lurkers). It was an elite group at the front. Finally, with less than 20 km to go, Andy Schleck took off again, with David Rebellin (Italy), Sammy Sanchez (probably the least well-known Spanish rider in the race even though he finished 8th at TDF), Michael Rogers (Australia), and Alex Kolobnev (Russia) in tow. This group of 5 got a small gap, and looked to be the group to decide the medals. I started pulling for Schleck (he was awesome in the Tour) or Rebellin (it was his 37th birthday). With 2 km to go, Fabian Cancellera showed up out of nowhere, but he was too spent to unleash his sprint. Sanchez managed to outlean Rebellin for gold, with Cancellera grabbing the bronze. Awesome race. Too bad for Schleck, but his future is sooooo bright...
Canada actually had a great day. Ryder Hesjedal made the early break and really worked hard at the front to keep the break away. Michael Berry actually finished 9th place, only 16 seconds back of Sanchez. So the Canadian team considered Saturday a success! Although i didn't like the CBC commentators kept telling us that there was a Canadian in the final group..."Not a rider, but a Canadian-made bike...hahaha". Oh yeah, those funny commentators...
Sunday was the women's road race (about 125 km). But they didnt get a break from the elements as it rained the whole day! Not cool. Alex Wrubelski from Regina was nicely placed until she tried sliding down a hill rather than using her wheels. Not a good method for sticking with the main group.
The womens race broke open near the end, with a 5 women sprint finish. Pre-race favorites Marianne Vos, Judith Arndt, and Kristin Armstrong all missed the late break, and thus Great Britain's Nicole Cooke took victory. It is the first of potentially many gold medals for Great Britain in cycling. Canadian's finished in 17th, 37th, and 50th. Tough conditions for the women...
Okay, today (Tuesday night in North America) are the time trials! Women go 23.5 km, while the men go 47 km. The men's race favorite is probably Fabian Cancellera, although Contador, Leipheimer, Evans,Kirchen and Denis Menchov are also contenders. It will be interesting to see if Stefan Schumacher can match his TDF results when he won both individual time trials. Plus there is a big rumour that Cancellera could possibly be riding the Cervelo P4C in a world debut! So that will be worth staying up tonight...
Speaking of Cervelo, that Olympic-ringed Cervelo Soloist that Gomez and Whitfield will be riding next week at the triathlon is not really a Soloist. It is actually a 2009 Cervelo S3, and is new high-end aero road bike. I have also found pictures of the 2009 S2 (which is not quite as aero or light i assume as the S3) and the 2009 P2C. No word on a S1, which would make sense below the S2 and S3. I'll keep you posted.
Tomorrow, doping hits the Olympics, and we'll recap the time trials!
1 comment:
im here because of few cents for you. just dropping by.
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