Oh dear, if only the British team knew you were available .

As Dave Brailsford once told me “If your phone’s not ringing you’ll know it’s me”

Seriously though, Millar was a perfect inclusion in a team to chase down breaks for Cav.

If you think he stood a snowballs chance in hell of winning from a break himself then I think you need to take off your Union Jack tinted spectacles.

By the look on Wiggo’s face yesterday in Putney he was giving it all he had…

We’ve had silver in the ladies, let’s hope Lizzie gets as much +ve coverage as there’s been debate about the men’s loss.

And focus on the time trial and track. I doubt Team GB cycling are going to have a failure games… we’ll forget all about yesterday in a couple of weeks

And in the meantime, cycling is getting positive press across the UK. Long may that last

Why wasn’t the winner wearing the yellow jersey

Well said Crazylegs and Imnotverygood!

Crazylegs has it spot on…

But superb stuff from Lizzie Armistead today, and superb stuff from Annie Last for third at the val d’isere XC, fingers crossed for the Olympic XC… I’ll stick with the positives thanks

Had a great day watching the race first on the way down at Walton on Thames & then on the way back near Esher.

Fantastic atmosphere, lots of people out watching, great weather & blimey they were riding at some speed.

The breakaway at Walton on Thames roundabout

Team GB on the front giving chase

At Esher another breakaway

At Esher with Team GB chasing – Cav in second place

A great day watching the race & a nice bimble back from Hampton Court to Walton along the towpath 🙂

let’s hope Lizzie gets as much +ve coverage as there’s been debate about the men’s loss.

++++1

As much, or more..

Some fun in the comments here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/davidbond/2012/07/cavendish_and_co_disappoint_in.html?postId=113219036

let’s hope Lizzie gets as much +ve coverage as there’s been debate about the men’s loss.

As there are 489 posts on this thread and only 135 on the Women’s RR thread, I think a good place to start on this quest is within the cycling community.

They tried. Originally, it didn’t have Box hill in it. I can’t remember whether it was the UCI or IOC, but it was judged not profitable enough running on huge tracts of public road and they had to include a nice compact area that could easily be closed and ticketed, which worked so well (financially at least) for the tour of flanders this year.

FTFY 😉

five men cant control a race when the entire rest of the peleton are racing negatively against them. Teams with sprinters were happy to give away a chance of any medal if it prevented GB from being in the hunt. Michael Rogers interviewed on 5Live blamed it on the narrow roads of the box hill circuit stopping his team from being able to move up. They seem to manage it in the classics, mind.

Edited Cav interview here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haFlFveUTf4
Doesn’t show all the questions Cav got, I also think he correctly assessed the reporter.

Impressed by the newspaper coverage this morning!

I think the key to the outrage is that the mainstream media present Cav and Wiggo as “the worlds best road cyclists”. This isn’t true.

Cav is the worlds best sprinter and is the world champ as it was held on a sprinters couse

Wiggo is the worlds best GC rider

Not one person can be classed as “the worlds best” but Cancellara, Gilbert and others are amounst the best “one day” riders and they also failed to win.

If Cav was better known to the public as “the worlds best sprinter” then maybe what happend in the race could be better comunicated as… Team GB tried to control a race perfectly suited to a breakaway and force a sprint for Cav. Even though every other team in the race wanted a breakaway they were only 40s away for achiving their goal. What heros.

Doesn’t show all the questions Cav got, I also think he correctly assessed the reporter.

I’m sorry, but if you’re going to push cycling into the limelight, get it into a larger audience blah blah you’re gonna get inane questions from the reporter from Newsround etc. who know nothing about cycling and you just need to grin and say no politely to the TdF question. Cav just looks a little stupid to me now. If people are going to put him up as a role model (and get nice lucrative shampoo advertising from it) then he’s gotta play the game to some extent.

Maybe next year a little media training would be nice.

Had a very interesting conversation with a certain high profile BBC sports presenter a few years ago, he said the sports and news journalists don’t mix and generally the sports guys (mostly ex sportsmen themselves) think (know) the news people assigned to sports are generally muppets.

If Cavendish made a mistake it was in speaking to the BBC news muppet, just give the interview to the sports team (who they should know)

I’m sorry, but if you’re going to push cycling into the limelight, get it into a larger audience blah blah you’re gonna get inane questions from the reporter from Newsround etc. who know nothing about cycling and you just need to grin and say no politely to the TdF question. Cav just looks a little stupid to me now. If people are going to put him up as a role model (and get nice lucrative shampoo advertising from it) then he’s gotta play the game to some extent.

Yes, but it wasn’t newsround was it, it was the BBC. And in fact I think it’s done more for getting the point accross that it wasn’t anyones ‘fault’ and the BBC is stiring things up with -ve reporting than a flat no would have. Everyone in the office was discussing it this morning and were split 50/50 between the BBC “they’ve failed” camp and those who were now able to articulate why they didn’t win and how it wasn’t nececeraly a single rider/team/coaching system’s fault.

After watching the Ladies yesterday, was anyone else thinking the race might be more spectcular with no teams? Or just teams of 2 to force the winners to go for big solo’s and the pelaton to work together to chase down every breakaway?

I agree. Teams of 2 or 3 would be a good idea. The girl’s race was clearly a better ‘race’ as it was pretty much everyone for themselves.

More than half the men’s peloton just rode around all day with no attempt to win anything.

After watching the Ladies yesterday, was anyone else thinking the race might be more spectcular with no teams? Or just teams of 2 to force the winners to go for big solo’s and the pelaton to work together to chase down every breakaway?

But the whole point is that nations spend years having their riders compete in ranking events to score the points necessary to submit a team of x people. GB had 5 cos we’re one of the best cycling nations, some nations only had 1 or 2. If it was an individual event, each nation would only be able to field one athlete otherwise you’d ALWAYS have some form of teamwork. That would detract from the spectacle somewhat…

Re Cav and his answers – you’ve just ridden 140 miles on the rivet, suffered massive disappointment and then you’re faced with some inane prat who doesn’t understand the complexities and nuances that surround cycling – under those circumstances I’d say his response was relatively restrained. I like Cav for that very reason, he speaks his mind and underneath it all he’s a genuinely down to earth nice guy.

Doesn’t help of course that the media had more or less hung the gold medal round his neck a week ago so they didn’t have any idea of what to ask him when the plan didn’t quite work out.

Didn’t the breakaway have riders in it from all the teams apart from GB and Germany? Ie the two who might’ve won a sprint?

Even if the interviewer had asked a sensible question – like: “Was it wise to decide on the story of the race before the race had even started?” he probably would still have got a rude answer from Cav. The race was designed to offer up lots of possibilities, but GB only ever countenanced one possibility. They got it wrong.

I was disappointed by the mens result but totally understand why.

What irked was how bad some of the BBC coverage was.

I mean could they have decided how they were going to pronnounce some of the riders names at the start?

And Andrei Greipel getting 4th place after 24 riders had already crossed the line

They got it wrong.

What else should/could they have done?

They had to select Cav as he was our best chance of a medal. Not selecting him would have been leaving everything to luck as we don’t have a one day classics type rider appart from Garaint Thomas and he is focused on the track. Also there a a lot of other riders better at this type of race so it is unlikely we would win without Cav.

So once Cav is in the race we either support him or we just hope for a sprint but everyone tries to get in the breakaway. Its unlikely any of our riders would win from the break and with out GB pulling it is guaranteed not to be a sprint as no other teams will pull if Cav is in their group. So we have to pull to try to force a bunch sprint.

This almost worked, the peleton were only 40s back. If Germany and the Aussies worked (which they should with the 2nd and 3rd best sprinters in their team; they passed up a Silver and Bronze and a shot at the gold just because they didn’t want to be beaten by Cav) then the break would have been caught.

The race hinged on the composition of the inevitable break that would be down the road after the last Box Hill circuit. Team GB were very unlucky that there were so many riders in it. They tried to pull it back and to stop this but it was 4 vs 40. Run the race again and its 4-10 guys with a few major nations missing and the break gets caught.

So GB did the right thing, the only option they had, but they got unlucky. Not something they deserve critism for and they should be praised that only 4 riders were able to hold a break of 40 to only 40s at the line.

If you can think of another way to run the race with a higher chance of suceeding then I’d love to hear it.

I’m not surprised a team of 4 chasers working together couldn’t catch a breakaway of 20 working together. Even when those 4 are 4 of the best riders going currently.

I was however genuinely surprised that on sunday, 20 riders working together couldn’t claw anything back from 3 in a break. Great ride and all by the 3 up the road, but that really surprised me.

Makes me wonder if the last 30 miles from Box Hill to The Mall are a better breakaway course than we all imagined. I’m reasonably adept at following the tactics after 10 years of following the major races, and I was convinced that whatever happened on Box Hill would get negated in the run back to london. I was wrong, and while the mens chase might have stood a better chance if the Germans and others had got themselves involved, I’m not convinced now that it would be a given that they’d have pulled it back in.

What else should/could they have done?

I totally disagree that there were not other options. They tried to use a nine-man tactic with only five men. Not only that, they laid it down from very early in the race because they were afraid of a split. Apart from that risk they could have mixed it in the peleton in the usual fashion, esp whilst the break was still weak in numbers and class.

Other teams marked the break as it built in strength, as should we (but we were already over-committed and tired).

It isn’t true to say we lack all-round riders either. Even if we did, there is still a point to marking the break.

When this tactic worked at the Worlds the decision was taken on sight of the course layout – had the course been different we may well not have used the same tactics. The Box Hill course was clearly designed to be finely balanced – the tipping of the balance being the size and quality of the break away (and the composition, and therefore who was left to do the work in the peloton).

Good analysis from jfletch I think. The Germans and Aussies could have co-operated with GB in return for a shot at gold and a likely bronze/silver in the bag. Against logic (apparently), they opted not to.

So it goes, that’s the game.

Makes me wonder if the last 30 miles from Box Hill to The Mall are a better breakaway course than we all imagined.

Yeah I think there may have been a miscalculation there. I had the feeling there would be plenty of time then I was surprised how quickly they got from darkest Surrey to the Mall.

That run-in to London point is very valid. I said before the race that if Box Hill were ten miles closer to London it wouldn’t be on the course. I guess it needs to be even further away!

as jpfletch said, what really went against them was the size and quality of the break. If you want to run (made up) numbers on it, I guess the chances of a break of that size and quality getting away is probably 1 in 4 or 1 in 5, so 3/4 or 4/5 times the break would then not succeed, and then Cav would win the sprint 90+% of the time.

Better odds than putting a bloke (Millar I’d assume) in the break and him having a 1 in 5 chance of winning the break against riders like Fab.

They tried to use a nine-man tactic with only five men. Not only that, they laid it down from very early in the race because they were afraid of a split. Apart from that risk they could have mixed it in the peleton in the usual fashion, esp whilst the break was still weak in numbers and class.

The nine man tactic issue is valid but again what else could they do? But they had get on the front early becuase without radios they couldn’t risk the early break getting too much time as they knew it would be impossible to pull back 10mins after Box Hill, there were some strong guys in that break. If I remember correctly the break in Sydney got 20 mins and they couldn’t risk a similar issue. Judging by the way they rode into London I don’t think a lack on energy was really the issue with the chase either.

Other teams marked the break as it built in strength, as should we (but we were already over-committed and tired).

To what end? We’d have lost a man to help pull in the peleton but that man would have almost zero chance of winning from that group. Judging by the effort the put in on the chase, Millar, Frome or Wiggo had the energy to go with the break but it was prudent based on the state of the race not to at that time.

It isn’t true to say we lack all-round riders either. Even if we did, there is still a point to marking the break.

Maybe, there is always a chance you could get lucky in a break. But with only 5 riders what increases your chances more? If you stopped the race as the break was forming and analysed all the times and data available to make a decision you would still assume that Germany and the Aussies would pull. 3 teams, 10 guys pulling for 40km should pull back 1 min on a break. 9 times out of 10.

The Box Hill course was clearly designed to be finely balanced – the tipping of the balance being the size and quality of the break away (and the composition, and therefore who was left to do the work in the peloton).

Exactly, so on such a fine balance why the critisim for our boys? Especially given the Aussies (and the Germans to a lesser extent) bottled it.

Better odds than putting a bloke (Millar I’d assume) in the break and him having a 1 in 5 chance of winning the break against riders like Fab.

The odds of one of the 4 winning from that break would be a lot less than 1 in 5. Cav himself may only win 1 in 5 for there. (But if Cav was there then nobody would pull and it would just be the peleton!)

I guess I think they should have ridden to the course, not the story they had already written in their heads.

The competition was to win on that course. Millar might have had a chance, especially since he would have just sat in the break.

To be fair, I didn’t call it as 100% wrong at the time, so this is classic spouting off in hindsight. But – I certainly did say all along that a break away was a distinct possibility, especially if it gets sizeable and contains good riders.

Maybe Cav will become ever more versatile as time goes by – the dream scenario would be to mark the break… with Cav! Boonen was in there for example. (Anyone know what happened to him, btw – did he just blow?)

Boonen punctured I think. And Cancellara had issues with the barriers!

I suppose the issue with Millar being in the break is that it may give you a 1 in 100 chance of getting lucky but to get that 1 in 100 chance you have to recduce your chances of getting a sprint and a certain medal by 1/4. Therefore it isn’t worth it. Maybe with 9 guys you’d do it but not with 5.

Hey: but at least this is a sensible cycling chat, rather that the Cav lost because we wern’t good enough drivel that was in the papers!

Some non-cycling girl-friends asked “What happened to Cav?” So I explained briefly, how Team GB had tried so hard without help from other teams to catch-up the break. And they understood. Now why can’t BBC sports journos manage that?

There is of course an additional reason not to send Millar – politics! Irony being that a much more recent cheat got the gold!

Politics? I don’t understand. Millar was Team Captain right?

Oh well then if even women can understand then the thicko journalists should be fine…