i agree completely. it is debateable what is an acceptable level of technicality and crash potential. it is not debatable that measures should be taken to minimise consequences to athletes where there is a significant crash risk. hell, even DH mtb have pads on trees and thats a sport that is all about technicality and crash potential!

some pads on a few spots of that descent would not have been hard to achieve

https://www.thesun.co.uk/...-victoria-pendleton/
I'm disgusted LA was even allowed to start, who the &%@! Misses 3 consecutive doping tests and is still racing?

---

res, non verba

bingo.

that's nearing the level of negligence on the part of the organizers.

i'm surprised no one has brought this up yet.. so i will:

abbot was doing a pretty darn good job holding them off. she had about 8k where she really had to have a solid solo effort.

a few things i thought (and i would love some ST engineering/mathematics here):

if she had:
- longer sleeves on her arm (hers were extremely short compared to the other girls)
- more aero helmet (was hers the most aero?)
- had di2 (vs the cables in the front of her mechanical set)
- more aero frame
- ditched the water bottle (she didn't drink from it once the final 8k)
- rode aero position vs in drop bars

would that have given her the extra few seconds she needed?

i know 8k is not a lot of pavement, but every little bit counts, right? is it possible?

Firstly it is very clear that Lizzie Armitstead made some huge errors over the last year, which have should lead to some very large questions being asked and answered. Both of herself and of her governing body. However your statement above is a long way from true.

As I understand:

Test 1: She was where she told the testers she would be, however the hotel she was in refused to allow the tester access to her room. The tester then made minimal efforts to try and find her. She was then tested the following day. That doesn't excuse her completely, but it does appear as though she was not trying to miss a test.
Test 2: There was no attempt by the testing agency to test her, so she didn't miss her test. However, there are several forms that must be completed for every day stating the athlete's whereabouts and two of those forms gave conflicting information on her whereabouts. As a result the agency were unsure as to which of two places she was in and declared this a missed test. Again, it doesn't suggest that she was deliberately trying to miss the test.
Test 3: She has just cited personal family reasons for missing this test so that doesn't really cut it for me.

I also believe that she was tested extensively over that period as well, so to claim that she missed 3 consecutive doping tests is untrue. A more correct statement would be that out of many tests (more than 20?) a hotel blocked access to her for one, an admin error meant that two testers would have been required to definitely test her and it was therefore easier to just put it down as missed (as per the rules) and therefore she actually only 'missed' one test.

However, her initials are LA, and he never tested positive, so I'm not for one minute saying that she is definitely clean. She certainly won't be gaining any marks for intelligence this year and, guilty or innocent, will likely be tainted as a drugs cheat forever more. Maybe I just want to believe that she isn't taking drugs and am being naive, but once I looked into the circumstances surrounding the 'missed tests' I changed my initial "guilty - burn at stake" verdict to "undecided".

this.

Guess what happened in the closing kms of the 2014 championships on ponferrada? Vos, Armitstead, Johansson, and guess who, Longo Borghini established a sizeable gap into the run-in. Guess what happened in that race?

it's funny that thisisit claims to watch a lot of cycling when s/he misses the connection to almost the exact same scenario two years ago

Yes. The first circuit which featured cobbles is used in the time trial. However, pavement has been laid down covering half the road and the pavement part will be used for the TT.

---

________
It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

The group cooperated beautifully until the last 800m or so, so it's not like she wasn't working her ass off. Emma, Mara and Elisa all ride for the same trade-team, it's the winner AvdB that's the odd one out - so trade team allegiance isn't the case here.

The part in bold works both ways. Too many world championships were determined by a hesitant chase - if you don't put everything into the chase you won't get to sprint for the medals to begin with... Pauline Ferrand-Prevot's 2014 Worlds win was exactly a case of nobody in a 10-strong chase group willing to do the work.

And if you want an example of "self-respecting male professionals" screwing that up, just look at Valverde in Worlds 2013, letting trade teammate Costa go and screw over national teammate Purito. Or, look at Valverde and Eddie B failing to cooperate at Worlds 2012 to catch Phil Gilbert.

The chasing trio worked perfectly until the catch was certain. After that, you don't always get to choose where you position yourself when there's another chase group behind.

---

ZONE3 - We Last Longer

[quote snaaijertHonest question. Seems like most women riders are much more allround (probably partially out of necessity) than the male riders. I guess in a flat flat stage someone like a Kirsten Wild or Bronzini? might be the fastest, but in any other scenario there just seems like a whole host of fast-ish women.[/quote]
Most of the women's races don't have extreme amounts of climbing in them, but are more similar to "classics-type" courses: short sharp hills, technical sectors. Except for the Giro Rosa, I can't think of a World Cup/Tour course that would really suit a climbing specialist.

Naturally, this lends itself to more of the stand-out female pros being more "Classics Specialist" type all-arounders with a decent sprint. There are a few exceptions - Abbott, Katie Hall and Ashley Moolman-Pasio are examples - but most of the field is on the Classics spectrum, from somewhat-better-climbers like Longo Borghini to the better-sprinters like Armitstead and Vos - and of course the pure sprinters like Shelley Olds, Wild and Riviera.

---

ZONE3 - We Last Longer

Her initials are EA.

True!! Being a bit dumb there!!!

I was thinking this too, and this seemed to be the biggest thing: not a very good 'aero' position on the road bike to do a solo effort like that, and constantly getting up out of the saddle. Compare to the form of the 3 chasers. She basically needed to do an 8k TT -- so ride it like a TT. Get low, get on the rivet, get narrow, head low and just hold it.

I missed the men's race. Does anyone know where I can buy/watch the full race? Ideally I'd like to download because high resolution and no buffer would be amazing.

If you have cable, and it includes the NBC sports network, you should be able to watch the event replay. I did that with the women's race last night, via the Roku app.

Deeper wheels? Little hard to see, but looked like she was on 35s, only Longo Borghini was on deeper wheels.
An Evade might have been the next best upgrade.

---

Brian

Gonna buy a fast car, put on my lead boots, take a long, long drive
I may end up spending all my money, but I'll still be alive

This surprised me too. I think Mega would have had a better chance in holding off the three if she'd been the one off the front (but I am more than biased). And agree - Coryn wouldn't have been in the mix at all.

---

clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

BBC iplayer

oops.. yeah, not deeper wheels. i was just on a roll. ha ha.

but she was caught 150 meters out.. that's not very far at all. i don't know her exact speed, but she couldn't have been going any less than 25mph.

but even at that.. 25mph is about 11.176m/s.

let say the chasers were going 27mph, which is about 12.07m/s

so about 1 meter per second faster. she would have needed a little over 10 seconds to hold them off? i guess she probably wasn't going to gain 10 seconds over the 8k stretch, even with the best aero equipment....

right?

You realize these are not weekend warrior MOP triathletes that can just willy nilly slap on any helmet they want, right?

Besides, no Spesh rider (that was in the final at least) was wearing the Evade, not the women, not the men. Probably because it was hot as hell. Good job being aero when your brain is being fried. Only Johansson had the full POC aerolid, but she's Swedish so then it works ;)

It's a decent list. Looks like Abbott cut her sleeves and shorts shorter than the standard issue, to save weight I guess? If she would have traded some of that weight weeny-ism for aeroweeny-ism it might have gained her a couple of seconds, sure.

But the time gained is rather academic. She might have gained 10s but she was being chased, so they might have chased harder to bridge that gap. This is bike racing, not a time trial. You ride hard you get chased harder. Majka and Abbott should have a little crushed dreams reunion on Ipanema this week ;) at least Majka got a bronze.

Besides the fact that the poster above me mentions (she can't just choose anything she wants as a sponsored trade team/national athlete)...she had electronic shifting on her bike.

are you suuuuuure about di2? i swear i saw tons of cables on multiple occasions. then again. it was late, i had a few beers and i was really sleepy.

Yes, I am sure she had electronic shifting. One thing you didn't mention would be the helmet chin strap.

Is nobody her clued into the fact that some people are good sprinters and others aren't? That for some people, no matter how much you make the other work, you're basically still going to get smoked? For sprinters it's like their fast twitch muscles are in a separate compartment and have been on vacation until it's time to sprint. If they are still there, they can still sprint. Perhaps Longo Bourgini is one of those non-sprinters and she knew that no matter what she was going to get 3rd in that group. If she is one of those riders, then she absolutely did the right thing.

Hey, guess what, she's not a sprinter.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/...dal-in-rio-olympics/

From that article:
"...but of course I had to wait for them for the sprint, because I am not a sprinter," Longo Borghini said."

"Instead of a bunch sprint, the race came down to a small group of nine riders and Lizzie Armitstead won the world title for Great Britain. Longo Borghini was in that small group but she could only manage a fourth place behind silver medallist Anna Van der Breggen (Netherlands) and bronze medallist Megan Guarnier (USA). It was a result that she expressed disappointment over while speaking with Cyclingnews at the finish line.

"I think we rode really well, I'm just really sad that until 20 metres to go I was third position but I couldn't really finish off the good teamwork with a medal. I feel really sorry for my national team. It's a hard fourth place for me," she said."

Shocking that a professional cyclist would know more about his or her strengths as a rider than the internet peanut gallery...

---

Kevin

http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com
My Strava

I already addressed that when she was excited for finishing 3rd and not pissed or banging her bars. That proved to me she wasn't a sprinter and rode the ending exactly how she did. Look up a few pages up I think.
ETA: My response to her being "happy" for 3rd at end of race:

Then that was exactly why she worked to ensure she could sprint for at worse bronze. If she knew she couldnt sprint, it makes complete sense in my mind to gurantee a top 3 versus waiting and then only finishing 4th. So your reasoning proves to me atleast, exactly why she worked the finish like she did.

If you know you can't outsprint the other 2, and you know this, and there is still one person up the road, I'd say she rode exactly how she wanted to get a medal.

---

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II