First medal for GB! Silver medal for Lizzie Armitstead in the women's Road Race.
Hopefully some more to follow now. Becky Adlington will hopefully get one in the 400m swimming this evening.
Can someone explain how the cycling works.
OK:
A team of riders help each other out, but only one gets the medal.
Cheers.
Can someone explain how the cycling works. A team of riders help each other out somehow, but only one gets the medal?
Also does anyone have any experience of it in terms of how much benefit you get in the 'slipstream' of whoever is doing the work?
I'm not so sure; she blitzed her heat, but was the slowest qualifier so she's going to have to go a lot faster!
She did it
I used to cycle a lot (not competitively though), and in my experience, getting into the slipstream of a lorry or a bus up a steep hill would make a huge difference to the effort required. I expect being in the middle of the peloton is something like that.
According to Wiki you can use 40% less energy in the slip stream of a peloton. I just wondered what is to stop one of the stream creators saying "**** this" and sprinting for the medal at the end, other than being knackered.
Tactics. And the fact that is not easy to sprint away from the front. That's why Cav and other sprinters has a supporting team around (or rather in front of) them to position them in an optimal postion to sprint away. When you see attemps to break free in the middle of the race you'll see that they always come from behind the front, gathering pace and racing past the front riders. The front riders do not have the same surprise element.
You'd be a bit pissed off if you busted your guts all race for someone else to get the glory though.
You would think so, but cycling is far more of a team sport than most people know. All teams have a set of tactics depending on how the race develops. For instance Norway's presumed best rider was never seen yesterday. That was because Kristoff was part of the early outbreak and the rest of the team sat back like all the other nations with riders in the break. GBR had none in the break which meant that had to try to get the peleton up again. They never did any great attemps to break free because they knew a sudden change of tempo would tire Cav and reduce his chances in a mass sprint. When it became clear that the outbreak field could go all the way other nations let single riders break free to try to join the leaders. Norway succeded in this getting one rider up to Kristoff who is a good sprinter. The other rider than "sacrificed" his own chances by helping Kristoff to close gaps and hold the tempo up. Kristoff got the bronze thanks to his sprinting capacity while the other ider rolled in to 25th place. Team play succeded
Worked well for Cav!
Worked well for Cav!
P | Pld | Pts | |
1 | Leicester | 44 | 94 |
2 | Leeds Utd | 45 | 90 |
3 | Ipswich | 43 | 89 |
4 | Southampton | 44 | 84 |
5 | West Brom | 44 | 72 |
6 | Norwich City | 44 | 72 |
7 | Hull City | 44 | 69 |
8 | Coventry City | 43 | 63 |
9 | Middlesbro | 44 | 63 |
10 | Preston | 44 | 63 |
11 | Cardiff City | 44 | 62 |
12 | Bristol City | 44 | 59 |
13 | Sunderland | 44 | 56 |
14 | Swansea City | 44 | 56 |
15 | Watford | 44 | 53 |
16 | QPR | 45 | 53 |
17 | Millwall | 44 | 53 |
18 | Stoke City | 44 | 50 |
19 | Blackburn | 44 | 49 |
20 | Plymouth | 44 | 48 |
21 | Sheffield W | 44 | 47 |
22 | Birmingham | 44 | 46 |
23 | Huddersfield | 44 | 44 |
24 | Rotherham Utd | 44 | 24 |