So whose gonna win the Olympic MTB XC on Sat & Sun?

I’m going with a rather safe bet with Jolanda & Nino.

Be interesting to see what damage Sagan can inflict.

Place your bets…

Nino in the men’s, just can not see him getting beat.

The women’s is wide open IMO, Jolanda’s period of domination has faded and she is a bit more affected by the heat than the others. I am going to go for a relative outsider Lea Davidson.

Absolon.
I am planning on cheering Grant Ferguson. Maybe he can shock everyone.

Nino is going to do everything right but go out with a mechanical leaving Absolon to pick up Gold and retire.

Dahle in the womens.

Schurter, Absalon, Kulhavy. Sagan 17th, but wheelieing the whole way round, so fair play.

Ferguson top 10 if he doesn’t have a mechanical or crash.

No idea with the women, it’s wide open I reckon.

I reckon Nino for the men’s and it be good to see Emily Batty get a medal.

It’s pretty hard to see past Nino for the men and I’ll go Jenny Rissveds for Women.

Nino in the mens.

Womens should be a great race, so many potential winners.
Rissveds is the favourite for me.

It’s between Jamba and ninfan.

xc course looks a lot better now than the first helmet cam shots.

When is it on ?

now

how to watch?

here on bbc

HTF do I watch it?????

Thanks!

its on one of red button channels on Freeview – channel 607 or something

xc course looks

like a Blue/green graded trail centre loop (with one or two simple Red graded TTFs).
Let’s hope Segan brought his roadbike.

I reckon that course gets significantly trickier when you’ve been racing for an hour or two.

Its certainly no CX course.

Bollocks – I’m at the mother in laws in rural Devon, no WiFi and an ancient tv, poo. I thought it was on a main channel.

Excitable , enjoyed that.

What was the result? Stuck at work.

great race, really enjoyed that! Good course

27.5 ftw

That was quite lame, course was a bit too boring.

Why weren’t they riding gravel bikes? Probably better suited to the cycle paths they were riding on

Would love to watch the people slagging the course try to ride it.

What is that? Like three spectators for the medals?

Hard racing though

Sverige! Was it a 27.5? Just caught the ceremony

fifeandy – Member
Would love to watch the people slagging the course try to ride it.

Couldn’t agree more. It’s not a downhill course – but it’s not supposed to be!

would love to watch the people slagging the course try to ride it

I could easily, I’d not win because I’m not fit enough, but that’s the issue, it’s all about fitness not technical ablility on a bike & fitness which mtbing should be

I could easily, I’d not win because I’m not fit enough

But would you be faster than the professional racers down the descents? I guess we will never know.

Some of the ups looked a bit tricky too to be fair.

I’m with rocketdog, watching replay and it does look a little tame

Looked fine to me, plenty hard enough when you are riding flat out. Course designer did a good job some interesting sections both on the ups and downs, plus good for covering on TV.

Looked ok for an entirely man made course on the side of a hill. I guess the measure of how hard it is would be to see how many of the competitors took the B or C lines vs the A lines.

I managed to miss this when it was on TV earlier – does anyone know where I can watch a replay online?

Most long term mtb weekend warriors could ride the course at a pottle pace …. but simply not at that pace for that length of time under racing pressure without making mistakes. It is a simple fact…. Otherwise you would not be posting on here you would have just finished racing or preparing for tomorrow depending what sex you are

I think most of us could ride the course, but that’s not the point is it? Most of us couldn’t ride it at threshold for 6 laps in a hour and a half.

telly flattens out the course anyway, that hill looked plenty steep

Its like the Olympic course we had in the UK. Looked easy on the TV. I rode it and it was hard. Almost as if it was designed to have no flow and obstacles just to hinder you and make it harder at a race pace. I really enjoyed riding round it and it was nothing like the TV pictures. The Rio one is quite likely the same.

There was some good footage of a practice race on YouTube from the riders perspective. It looked bloody hard at a fast pace. Easy if you ride it like a trail center, but not if your flat out.

Anyone who has messed about with a GoPro will know filming trails so they look like they do in real life is pretty impossible.

I enjoyed the race and was surprise by the result. Rissveds was in a category all on her own. WTF happend to Neff ?

Oh, and Nino will be throwing whips off every obstacle on his way to winning 🙂

Sagan will go back to road riding once he realises mtb’ing is harder.

I think most of us couldn’t ride up the hills fast enough to get over some of the obstacles on the steep technical climbs.