Not even a big KA fan (not quite sure why – maybe just because she beat Emma in Beijing!), but OZ shouldn’t even be there, so very happy with that result.

Might be better off asking why our national federation chose not to qualify any men or women for the mtb events?

She wouldn’t have been any good on that course. Emma was encouraged to make a comeback by the GB cycling coaches on seeing the course because the climbing was likely to suit her – she’s almost certainly a significantly better climber than any of the girls who finished ahead of her in the nationals.

From the looks of that result it’s unlikely she’d have made the podium in any case, but I can’t help wondering how much of the 2 minutes she was off that was due to the conditions, which clearly didn’t suit her at all.

Dan Craven is away – left his TT bike behind.

Whilst Armitstead got all the negative publicity for going to CAS, Zabelinskaya seemed to have gone under the radar. Hardly raced at all since her comeback, so not much in-competition testing. And as to out of comp testing by her home federation during the last few years…….

Namibian rider with a pair of Gatorskin tyres FTW! 🙂

With those sunglasses, Dan Craven looks like he’s out for a sunday club run

I hardly want to discuss Zabelinskaya, but ISTM she epitomises the reason why the IOC should have given a blanket ban to the Russian team if they’d actually had any balls – given that CAS in it’s wisdom has said that they can’t ban anybody just because they’ve had a previous doping violation. Clearly her doping incident came right during the dodgy period and the Russian Federation decided not to even sanction her for it – in my mind (like CB it seems) she doesn’t even exist and van der Breggen came second.

Oh and the UCI are pussies as well for letting her take a retrospective 18 month ban, which appears to have made zero difference to her.

I thought that, I guess with it being windy and (presuambly) warm, should dry quickly

My heart is in my mouth every time I see a rider crossing the yellow lines on that twisty descent.

I rode the Rio route a month ago 8) The new tarmac on the cobbles wasn’t there then. There are certainly some punchy climbs on it!

On that day, they were also resurfacing the long beachfront section for the road race and had closed it to cars, so we were the first to ride it, without traffic too.

I thought it was something like that, cheers.

…have found the comments from CB I remember “there’s a little bit less climbing than I was expecting”, “little bit less climbing than Emma would have hoped for” – don’t know whether he hadn’t checked before or they’ve changed it – certainly from what I’d heard before I was expecting a lot more climbing than there actually seems to be.

The TT is on the western loop of the Road Race course, which is less hilly than the Vista Chinesa climb on the Eastern loop, but still some nasty steep bits.

Having ridden in Rio a fair bit, they should have used the climb to Christ the Redeemer as a finish, but I guess they wanted a stadium on Copacabana.

Geraint Thomas just started.

Froome starting slow 😯

First check (10km)

Spartacus 15:12
Dennis 15:13
G 15:18
Dumoulin 15:27
Panzerwagen 15:28
Castroviejo 15:31
Froomey 15:32

Start slow, finish fast… Always the best TT strategy.

Looking slippery out there.

G E R A I N T.

not too worried about Froome yet, it’s a longish TT and he had to measure his early effort when he won the tour uphill TT. He’ll finish strongly, as will Dumoulin probably.

Spartacus has just turned on the afterburners