I’d say it contravenes the Olympic oath…
“In the name of all competitors, I promise that we shall take part in these Olympic Games, respecting and abiding by the rules that govern them, in the true spirit of sportsmanship, for the glory of sport and the honour of our teams.”

Again, it wasn’t just throwing his bike down to get a restart that struck me as unsporting, it was (perhaps more so) his open admission of it afterwards that left me feeling let down. I am aware that what happened wasn’t entirely against the rules, but surely, these athletes are good enough to win without resorting to this sort of behaviour. Or is winning at any cost the right thing to do?

One slightly awkward interview and the media is all over it, I’m not sure why this is even newsworthy.

Conincidentally, every time I crash I always say ‘I meant to do that…’

It wasn’t just a ‘slow start’, it was a genuine mishap due to the explosive nature of the start. He lost control, got into a wobble and got chucked off by the fixed gear. He could probably have ridden it out but it would all have been over so he went down. It’s not like he was half way round, perfectly in control, but decided he’d got off a bit slow so crashed.

The rule was apparently introduced when a defending champion’s foot slipped and he went down at the start, so couldn’t defend his title. People thought that was very harsh so rules were changed to allow one fall per team. This probably falls within the spirit of those rules, but admitting it was deliberate was not too clever.

How are the French taking it? juan? juan? JUAN?

I can only imagine the frothing that would go on here if anyone else had done it. 🙂

The team’s interview from L’Équipe (web translation):

Kevin Sireau (France / team sprint): “This medal is a little bitter. We work all year for 4 years to get this gold medal and you end up in second place. It’s hard to smile but it’s still a silver medal. I am not impressed. This is a team like any other. It’s not because she broke the world record you can not beat it. “

Mickael D’Almeida (France / team sprint): “It’s a silver yes for sure but it did not come to that. It was not something unattainable. The rivals were behind us on the last world championships are far behind us. The British, it had been four years since they were not passed before us. There they repass before us, and how. We too has improved. It improves our personal bests. It was exceptional but we ran into a better team than us. Why? How? This reflects all the British Cycling for years. “

Florian Rousseau (coach of France): “It’s shit. They were simply stronger. I am proud of our team. She improved three times the best brand of Melbourne, the last world championships. They were untouchable. It is on a par on a lathe, a lathe and a half. After, it cracks a little. “

Them bloody lathes again!

it wasn’t just throwing his bike down to get a restart that struck me as unsporting, it was (perhaps more so) his open admission of it afterwards that left me feeling let down.

So it’s ok to drop the bike so long as you lie about it afterwards? Eh?

🙂 Yes, I caught that one…

It wasn’t deliberate, you could tell from Hoy’s expression that he knew he was trying to make a joke, but the combination of language difficulties and a poor interviewer was making an issue out of nothing.

When I watched the interview I thought it was obvious he was joking by the way he answered. I don’t think he understood the follow on question which made it look like he was being serious.

IIRC, when she said “you were trying to pull a fast one” I don’t think he understood the phrase at all so he started by saying “Yes…..” and then rambled n about trying to be as fast as possible.

William Fotheringham in the Guardian:

“The UCI rules stipulate that if a rider has a mechanical problem or a crash within the first half-lap of starting in a timed event they have the right to a restart.

A mechanical is easy to define: a wheel pulls loose or a foot pulls out of the pedal.

The crash rule is there partly because if you try to stop on a fixed-wheel bike on a steeply banked track, you will probably fall off anyway.

The problem is that if a rider has a mechanical problem which is ambiguous – ie they are not sure whether it would actually qualify – in other words wheel slip as they start or a loss of control such as that suffered by Hindes, to remain within the rules they have no option but to fall off. The rules do not offer the option of saying: “Oops, I think I had a problem, can I have another go?”

There is no sense in which it is viewed as cheating or affecting the outcome of the race.

It seems like an anomaly but it is a widely accepted one, to the extent that if a rider has a problem such as severe wheelslip and loss of control in the first metres, they are likely to be criticised if they don’t fall off.

The point that has to be appreciated is that as a rider starts a team sprint he is putting out massive torque – a performance analyst at GB told me at the start of the first pedal rev it is comparable to that produced by a Formula One car – so they are on the very edge of losing control.

In my eyes, Hindes showed considerable presence of mind: to be making a flat-out start effort, realise there is a problem and recognise you have only one option, all within a few seconds, at the age of 19 in only your second senior international race, is quite remarkable.”

So essentially, if he was a worse rider, and couldn’t recover from that loss of control, then it’s fine, but because he is good enough that he could have recovered, albeit not totally (enough not to crash, but not enough to not completely ruin his race) then that is not OK?

It’s clearly a grey area in the rules, designed to build in some flexibility so that a slip, fall, loss of control, crash or mechanical failure doesn’t instantly write off your entire competition. Probably why none of the other riders seem to have complained about it, after all, the sport is about who goes fastest, and the GB team were clearly the fastest there overall.

Still very silly to say it was deliberate because media & public pressure may well now force a law change, leading to even more situations like the relegations in the women’s races yesterday, where the third fastest team gets the gold.

Cougar, if you go back and read my post, you’ll perhaps notice that I said ‘it’s not just the fact that he threw his bike down’. I don’t think any of it was particularly sporting. At the end of the day, this is simply my opinion. That doesn’t make me wrong, or anybody else right, for that matter.

Maybe the fact that if you have a fall, you’re entitled to a restart is in the rules. Openly admitting (on camera) that you’d done it on purpose because you’d got a slow start is stretching things a bit though, or am I still being naive?

I think I must have watched a different interview. Cos the one I watched it was **** obvious he was joking.

YOu can see his front wheel swaps all over from the gate, it then gets worse and then rides his tt for a bit then falls off.

In the interview he said ‘yeah it was on purpose’ but because of his German accent you can’t tell his tongue is in his cheek. All of a sudden the prawn sandwhich eating cyclists (that Wiggins mentioned the other day) now are experts and say it unsporting.

Oh yeah and

And they claim the Germans have no sense of humour

Actually Germans take humour very seriously!

Bravo

the shooting guy said in an interview that he deliberately missed a couple of clays in quick succession to make it more exciting as he normally wins too easily.

down with this sort of thing.

fluffy bunnys.

He wasn’t joking. If you watch the video, the actual fall looks pretty controlled, after the botched start that gets him in to trouble. Fotheringham, the French team and others (Jamie Staff?) all called him on it, and I think they know what they are talking about.
As someone pointed out earlier, I think he was so frank because it’s a rare, but accepted tactic in track racing, so he didn’t think it was a big deal. Hoy and Kenny are just a bit more media-savvy, hence the eye rolling and grins when he cheerfully explains what was going on.
I agree with Fotheringham, that it shows a cool head and a lot of competitive nous to make such an explosive start, realise you are in trouble and execute a get-out, all within a few seconds. It’s great that we’ve actually got athletes like this who are really focussed on winning, not just taking part.

Anyone got a link to the video in question, so we decide if we need to break out the pitch-fork sharpeners?

fair enough.

Agree that he did have a genuine big wobble (likely caused by a wheel slip) and he was very composed and quick-thinking to bin it semi-convincingly even though he had pretty much recovered it. It’s laughable some people are saying he was joking in the interview though and that it’s all fair game. This isn’t a World Cup or even the World Champs, it’s the Olympics and sportsmanship is, rightly or wrongly, a bigger deal in that context.
For sure the best team won and I think they’re very deserving of the gold but I still know there would be a lot of angry Brits if it had been another team winning having done that in the heats.

Would never have happened if they’d all been on Orange Fives. 😉

He’s also pushing a massive fixed gear, if he slipped he would get pretty tangled up in it… falling off is then the only real option!

The video seems to show him really struggling to push the big gear after something happens on or at the start. He gets all bouncy on the bike. It’s a bit 50:50 and no way was he coming back from it.

Not a great angle, but does look sus from here:

Not a great angle,

True.

but does look sus from here:

You’ve got better eyesight than me.

I quite like the fact he worked within the rules to gain an advantage. They’re competeing to win, afterall.

/sidetracked
The open disapointment of the French sprint team and the British 4’s (on the lake) at getting a Silver medal is what I expect/want to see at this level.

I guess they’d already studied the rules before hand and decided that was a way out of a bad start, taking the view that it’s not cheating to use the rules to their advantage.
In a separate interview on TT bike design, Chris Boardman was talking about staying within the rules there, and his phrase to describe it was : “It’s our job to make the best bike possible, to butt right up to the rules”.
Sounds like the track cyclists took a similar view, and it is pushing the boundary between bad sportsmanship and cheating, but technically within this time.
The problem with doing this though, is sometimes rules can have unexpected interpretations.
Whilst falls are allowed, a less sympathetic judge may decide that a deliberate, but clumbsy, dismount is not a fall. Maybe not in front of a home crowd, against a team containing a legendary knight of the realm, but he may have a different result on the other side of the word.

its not like he got a slow start and jumped off to get a better one.

he damn near binned it, so deliberately keeled over right at the end…

im not sure what the debate is here. he nearly fell off, to recover would have put him WELL behind, so he decided not to recover.

makes sense non? better than going out because you heroically save a crash, only to be BEHIND the two lads you are leading out…

not in the rules. it’s quite straight forward.

🙄

I realise it’s not in the rules otherwise he would have got a restart. I’m making the point that it would not be unreasonable if the rules were to allow a restart for a mechanical failure in the first few meters. I don’t want to see events which are basically about the physical prowess of a competitor decided by an equipment failure. Allowing a minute to restart would hardly throw the competition into chaos.

yeh im with you. i think LL sanchez shoulda got a restart. poor sod hadnt turned a single pedal stroke.

yeh im with you. i think LL sanchez shoulda got a restart. poor sod hadnt turned a single pedal stroke.

Different events have different rules though.

It’s a massive shame for him, but no restarts in the ruless so that’s it.

It’s a massive shame for him, but no restarts in the ruless so that’s it.

However, that doesn’t mean that the rules can’t or shouldn’t be changed in the future…

Different events have different rules though.

It’s a massive shame for him, but no restarts in the ruless so that’s it.

argh! that’s what i said in the first place! these circular coversations are mental!

Sorry if I misunderstood what you meant. (or forgot who posted what previously)

But I responded to …..

i think LL sanchez shoulda got a restart

My response seems fair enough ?

In contrast, I think Sanchez was unlucky and it’s a shame he couldn’t get a restart

EDIT: Maybe they could change the rules in future?

perfectly fair respnse NG. but here’s the exchange in full…

avdave2 – Member
Well if he gets a restart then why not Luis Leon Sanchez in the Time Trial. It seemed a bit harsh as his chain seemed to break before he even got to the tarmac.

tracknicko – Member
not in the rules. it’s quite straight forward.

avdave2 – Member
I realise it’s not in the rules otherwise he would have got a restart. I’m making the point that it would not be unreasonable if the rules were to allow a restart for a mechanical failure in the first few meters.

tracknicko – Member
yeh im with you. i think LL sanchez shoulda got a restart. poor sod hadnt turned a single pedal stroke

nealglover – Member
Different events have different rules though.

Whilst a restart in a TT seems fair its not practical.

A TT is seeded such that the last man out of the start has the advantage of being last and each racer starts at a fixed interval so nobody gets an extra advantage of catching loads of people in front of him.

Allowing Sanchez a restart would not have been possible in the 90s before the next man was on the ramp and him running out of the order isn’t an option. Hence no re-starts.