It would only work if Lord Warner was commentating

‘Look at the time!’
‘That’s as popular as a ginger step child’
‘Looks like he’s shit a Lego Deathstar’
‘He’s off-line like a Russian border’
‘He’s all over the place! Like a monkey dry humping a football!’
‘He’s gone down faster than the US economy’

Yeah, with a compulsory stop at the top of each hill to wait for your mates who are at the bottom of the hill wondering when the uplift will get there, and a cafe stop half way round. We want a sport that represents what we really do.

Made that more realistic for you. 😛

DH & BMX are more of a spectacle, road & XC are a bit more obviously fitness than madskilz based

DH is less obviously about fitness? Have you seen some of the top riders recently, eg Gwin and Gee Atherton? They look as fit as Chris Hoy!

Anyway since when was the Olympics about fitness and not skill? They have table tennis in it, don’t they?

Besides, all this is irrelevant – I’m pretty sure that I read that DH was considered to be too reliant on technology and that it was spiritually too close to motorsports – by the olympics committee.

Yeah, with a compulsory stop at the top of each hill to catch your breath wait for your mates, and a cafe stop half way round. We want a sport that represents what we really do.

Olympic pootling about, it would be great.
They could spend half an hour at the start waiting for Spain until Germany suddenly remembers that he saw him in the pub on Thursday and he said he wouldn’t be coming because he’s got to visit his mum. Then Italy would discover that he’s forgotten his helmet but USA says it’s OK he’s got a spare one but by the time he’s got it from the car France has got his shock pump out and is fiddling with his forks, at which point Australia says sod it and goes off on his own, then everybody else decides to just go straight down the pub because it looks like it’s going to rain.

I went to watch two football matches during Sydney 2000 . . . In Adelaide.

I was working those matches, doing the IT stuff. Small world.

Don’t care about DH in the Olympics, but why not? No reason it should be instead of XC. And get cyclocross into the winter games, too.

It would only work if Lord Warner was commentating

‘Look at the time!’
‘That’s as popular as a ginger step child’
‘Looks like he’s shit a Lego Deathstar’
‘He’s off-line like a Russian border’
‘He’s all over the place! Like a monkey dry humping a football!’
‘He’s gone down faster than the US economy’

It would certainly add some cheer to the commentating – a bit like when Jenny Jones won her bronze and Amy Lee(?) joined Ed and Tim commentating -and they all got a tad carried away….

Olympic pootling about, it would be great.
They could spend half an hour at the start waiting for Spain until Germany suddenly remembers that he saw him in the pub on Thursday and he said he wouldn’t be coming because he’s got to visit his mum. Then Italy would discover that he’s forgotten his helmet but USA says it’s OK he’s got a spare one but by the time he’s got it from the car France has got his shock pump out and is fiddling with his forks, at which point Australia says sod it and goes off on his own, then everybody else decides to just go straight down the pub because it looks like it’s going to rain.

Best comment I’ve read in here in a while! Bravo sir, bravo.

Cyclo-cross would be a brilliant addition to the olympics, easy to construct a course, good spectator viewing, easy TV coverage, set duration. Don’t think it needs to be in the winter Olympics though, might almost make more sense to be in the summer when other cycling takes place. In fact googling suggests winter olympics has to be held on snow or ice. Not sure frozen mud counts?

Anyway since when was the Olympics about fitness and not skill? They have table tennis in it, don’t they?

Not a great comparison, Table Tennis players are actually very fit, it requires a huge amount of explosive leg power to move around the table.

Maybe archery would be a better example?

CX at the Winter Olympics yes, but why DH?

I just think DH fits in with the general theme of the Winter olympics, individual timed runs, bit of emphasis on tech and setup. I think it would be really good to expose the winter olympics audience to bike based sports. Plus why not do DH on snow, could become the next holiday craze 😀

twisty – Plus why not do DH on snow, could become the next holiday craze

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgepPmr8cWs[/video]

Yeah, with a compulsory stop at the top of each hill to catch your breath wait for your mates, and a cafe stop half way round. We want a sport that represents what we really do.

It’s called Enduro.

Anyway no one wants to see a sport in the Olympics which involves people pushing bikes up hills. What kind of message does that send out?

Modern XCO is perfect for the Olympics and right now is a better watch than DH IMO. Nino Schurter and the course designers have really moved the sport on from the old XC days.

If we’re joining the real world on this thread, because the IOC will only let cycling have so many events, they had to drop some track events to get BMX and XC in. I’m not sure I can see them deciding to drop another track event for DH.

matt_outandabout – Member

It would certainly add some cheer to the commentating – a bit like when Jenny Jones won her bronze and Amy Lee(?) joined Ed and Tim commentating -and they all got a tad carried away….

I loved that tbh, just about any fast paced sport could be improved this way. Wouldn’t really work for golf… But it’s almost like the rulebook for tv commentary says “Make it passionless and unenthused”. It doesn’t have to be Warnerish, it just needs to be joyous. Murray Walker frinstance.

Chris Boardman brought some of that to the end of the olympics road, wandering around with a big grin on his face congratulating the riders.