Sagan in Olympic MTB race.

Seems he’s got a wildcard[/url] entry into the cross-country event.Could be a real tussle with Shurter and Absalon.

His exploits thus far this year suggest otherwise.

Carl Sagan?

He’ll win by billions and billions of miles.

Might be a bit annoyed if I was the top XC rider in Solvakia that the one Olympic place in the XCO has just been pinched by a part timer.

I could see him being competitive if that had been his focus for the past 12-18 months. But I assume he will be doing this as a side show to the road race, so wouldn’t expect him to get anywhere near the podium.

edit, read the story now 😳

He does seem to think it’s a better medal chance than the road and has given up his road place for it.

Just looking at the top XCO riders and looking at Sagan, I just can’t see him troubling the top 10. I know he’s a former junior world champ, but I’m not sure what it would say about XC either if Sagan can just drop in with a bit of practice and get on the podium. Not sure it’d actually be good for the sport.

4th place in a Czech national race doesn’t really lend itself to a lot of hope at the Olympics. With a grand tour in his legs he’ll be fit, but only 4 weeks of specific training…

podium place could be worth £5 if you can find the rights odds !!

Anyone know what the course is like?

He’ll win by billions and billions of miles.

Only is XC MTB is 100% fitness and 0% skill. I know that Sagan has ridden MTB previously, but he trains road pretty exclusively (as you would have to to compete at that level). If he can beat all of the worlds top XCers, then the sport is a farce and doesn’t deserve to be in the olympics.

Wrecker I think you might want to read this
Carl_Sagan

How hard can it be?

He didn’t get a wildcard, he was selected by his federation.

With a grand tour in his legs he’ll be fit totally wrecked, but only 4 weeks of specific training…

FTFY. JC Peraud raced at London after the tour, I’m not convinced it’s a good sort of fitness for turning yourself inside out for 90 minutes!

I want him to win it, pull a wheelie over the line then do some air guitar on the podium.

mrblobby – Member

Anyone know what the course is like?

Only is XC MTB is 100% fitness and 0% skill. I know that Sagan has ridden MTB previously, but he trains road pretty exclusively (as you would have to to compete at that level). If he can beat all of the worlds top XCers, then the sport is a farce and doesn’t deserve to be in the olympics.

I dunno, the top MTB’ers spend most of their time on the road too.

and bear in mind the MTB’ers may be peaking for the WC’s whereas his training with be Tour first, Olympics as an afterthought, so by then it could be a lot more even. Especially as at least some of his training will be to turn himself inside out for 90 min on the Champs Elysee?

He’ll probably ride it on one of them new fangled all road/gravel/gnaroad bikes

Njee – the 2012 xc was a lot closer to the Tour than this year’s race (12 days difference). Peraud will have had a tougher race than Sagan will – Peraud rode as an outside GC chance in a French team who are under a fair amount of pressure to achieve some results, especially when they ride past their sponsors HQ most years. He’s usually expected to hang on as long as he can in the mountains.

Sagan will ride hard to win a stage or two, will then try to finish high up in some flat stages, then aim to get some points at intermediate sprints. In mountain stages he’ll carry some bottles for Bertie early on then spend the rest of the stage in the autobus.

I don’t think Sagan will get a top result at the Olympics, but the two scenarios aren’t comparable.

Nino Schurter rode the Tour de Suisse a couple of years ago for Orica Greenedge and wasn’t blown away by the roadies. I recall he had 2 or 3 top 10 stage finishes and impressed the OGE management when it went uphill. Now, obviously he’d been training a lot on the road but he was still 2nd in the World Cup with 4 wins so I’d assume his ability and fitness level, whilst not on a par with top road pros is right up there.

I assume he’ll do well but not trouble the podium as I’d imagine he has road duties for Tinkoff to deal with.

IT was mentioned at the Cairns round the JA had been off training with his brother for the technical side of things, the rational being you can’t just ride faster and win these days in XC you have to ride technically too.

I assume they still have more MTB riders than the UK managed to enter again…

My god that youtube video is boring.

Massive respect for the fitness and strength necessary to ride at the speed they do for the time they do, but the actual course looks like the very worst trail centre with intermittent man made rock gardens.

In my head XC should actually be “cross country”. Literally the quickest from A to B on a map over a bunch of natural terrain

Skipping through the course vid it looks decent, especially with the constraints they have

In my head XC should actually be “cross country”. Literally the quickest from A to B on a map over a bunch of natural terrain

Maybe but you don’t get the refuel/tech support options that way, make it really hard to televise and if you have long sections of singletrack make overtaking nearly impossible.

the actual course looks like the very worst trail centre with intermittent man made rock gardens.

In some ways the trail builders could take that as a compliment 😉

My god that youtube video is boring.

I think the skill of these guys is making the technical stuff look a lot easier than it is, the gully stuff in the middle looked good and the rock gardens interesting. Got a good mix of technical and overtaking in there.

Yeah they’re supremely fit and skilled riders but the course looks a bit meh. To be fair I don’t watch any xc so that could very well be the best course imaginable and if it is then fair play but it does look like a trail centre albeit the techy bits are probably way more techy than the video makes them look!

but it does look like a trail centre

Well they did have to build it, it’s going to give it that look…

I wouldn’t drive to Swindon to ride that course.

mikewsmith – Member
but it does look like a trail centre

Well they did have to build it, it’s going to give it that look

I guess “going round in circles” doesn’t sound as interesting as “cross country”

I think the problem with the course is how artificial the surface is, it looks like they have laid a smooth bedding. Most world xc couses are just marked of or cut into the natural materials on location. The techy bits look comparable with the world xc.

To be fair the london xc course was the same.

the Albstadt round of the world cup had a stretch of tarmac. Sagan will feel right at home

Can I be the first to say, I think he’d do quite well in CX too.

But that XC course ^^ is dull, they need moar step jumps, bridges, foam pit, tequila run.. Just like a CX course. 😛

And Lars Van De Haar is doing the Dauphine’ this week for Giant…

SOrt of agree with boardinbob, a lot of it looked like motorway, the techy bits WILL be really techy but half of xc for me is covering that ground that, while it might not be gnarpoon territory, has the energy sapping, grunting rooty rough and changeable surfaces that you find out on normal trails (and xc courses). it’s compromise obvs but it looks like they’ve gone for a fast course with ‘showpiece’ tech sections over a demanding course. (even Haldon had a horrible looking grassy climb bit and some bumpy through the trees stuff- or is that my memory going?)

Agree with TheStabiliser re. surface and it wouldn’t be my dream course by any stretch of the imagination but I guess a) they had to build it from scratch and b) they’ll have had to be mindful of spectators and tv coverage which means lots of stuff through thick woods isn’t going to go down well.

It will be much harder and steeper than it looks in the video thats for sure!

They should definitely get a bit of mud in there too!

I’m going to go ahead and buck the trend and say it looks like an excellent XC course. Would love a facility like this locally to ride on. Several of the rock gardens actually look quite gnarly – incredible how they ride them so fast/hard on 100mm XC bike with skinny XC tyres on. Willing to bet plenty of folk on here (including some enduroists) would be taking B lines in places.

As for Sagan – expecting midfield mediocrity.

The video really flattens things out. Those roacks are pretty big for an XC course.

http://www.pinkbike.com/news/rio-de-janiero-olympics-test-race-2015.html

I think the course looks hard, plenty of climbing then into technical sections with a huge penalty for failure. It was probably this course that made Absalon go and re-work his descending skills and if the last XCO round was to go by it’s paid off.

Always worth remembering that as an Olympic course designer you have to work with what you’ve got. You can’t easily build a hill or forest if non is present.

Anyway forget Sagan anyone know if Mathieu Van Der Poel is going to get picked?

As for Sagan – expecting midfield mediocrity.

Yep… meh

Always worth remembering that as an Olympic course designer you have to work with what you’ve got. You can’t easily build a hill or forest if non is present.

Also that the field isn’t exclusively WC standard and has a fair range of abilities through the qualified countries/ riders. I think it was last time around a poor chap couldn’t even clip in for the first five minutes but I may be mistaken

To be honest I am just disappointed that Forstermanm won’t give it a proper crack this time after lining up for the MTB in London 😉 🙂

The pink bike photos do a better job of showing the rock features than the video I think.

I can see him getting in the top ten, he’s got a background in MTB and I’d argue he’s going to be as fit as any of the top riders. What may hold him back is the thought of injury ruining his next road season.

I’d argue he’s going to be as fit as any of the top riders.

“Fit” is a relative term to the specificity of what you want to be “fit” for. Sagan manages to straddle many race types on the road pretty well but XCO is different again. Anyway, one thing can be certain: Even if his XCO fitness is top notch he’ll still come second due to poor tictacs 😆