Did you see the Olympic Road Race. Ugh. Highly disappointing.
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| Your winner, Kazakhstan's Alexander Vinokurov. Ugh. |
First off, let's say you're Team GB. You've got only five guys, but one is the best sprinter in the world and another is the best time trialist. Plus you've got
Chris Froome, who was freakin' dominant at the
TdF. So why the Hell do you let 32 guys get away in the last 25 miles? I mean, a breakaway sure, but 32 men? Ugh. Even
Bradley Wiggins isn't gonna be able to chase that many dudes down, especially when it's
Teejay VanGarderan who's setting the pace for the break group. When Wiggins popped, it was all over for the peloton, and they knew it. Bottom line, they should've chased earlier... which was kind of the story of the race.
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American Taylor Phinney. He needs to learn to
chase all attacks with less than 10 km to go. |
For the Americans... First off, they were never favorites. But they had two really good riders in the break, and once we'd established that the break was gonna stay away, frankly they were in good shape. But then
Fabian Cancellara crashes with maybe seven miles to go, and the. Teejay popped after having pulled the break for most of the day, and suddenly we're left with
Taylor Phinney,
Vino,
EBH, and a bunch of Spaniards and Columbians. So with 1.5 km to go, one of the Columbians attacks, Vino follows, and Phinney--who'd just taken a pull at the front of the break--decides to pull off and let someone else chase. Only no one else chases, and Vino gets away. With 5 km to go!
By 2 km, Phinney is visibly frantic, looking for a wheel to ride back into contention, but by then it's too late. Predictably, Vino bamboozles his break-mate with a half a klick to go, taking gold.
Uran, a previously anonymous Columbian takes silver, and EBH beats Pinney to the line to take Bronze. Phinney gets fourth... and four full years to contemplate why he didn't chase that one last late attack.
That's not the storyline we were looking for, folks.
Hi Dan,
ReplyDeleteThis is Chris (Niki's husband). Got a question for ya.
I'm the new writer for triathlon.about.com. I'm in the process of building that site and was curious if you'd be interested in doing some writing for it. I'm looking for articles around 600 words, and could pay $30 an article.
The added bonus is that we could provide a link on your name back to this site. About.com is a owned by the New York Times, with over 1 million readers daily. It's a great avenue to build readership for both of us.
Think about it and shoot me an email and chrisandniki@yahoo.com. Let me know your thoughts. You have some great knowledge and experience.
Dan,
ReplyDeleteOne other thing . . . we could also set up a profit sharing thing. If the site gets above certain metrics, we get a bonus from About.com. I'd like to structure something with the writers I'm bringing on board to share in those profits. It might be a while, but I want to build this site to the point where that happens.
--- Chris
Sure, I'm interested. I'll shoot you an email.
ReplyDeleteDan,
ReplyDeleteShoot me your email address again if you would. I got your message this morning, read it, and was going to respond back this afternoon. But of course, with the greatest of Yahoo email, your message is no longer there :)
--- Chris