2012 Olympics Road Race: the What-If Game

Now that the Olympics Road Races (both for Men and Women) are over with, it is time to imagine: "what-if ... ?" We start with a few, feel free to share your own.

1. What if Team GB had sent a rider up into the breakaway?
   
2. What if Team GB had given the breakaway more time gap?
   
3. What if Fabian Cancellara hadn't crashed?
   
4. What if the breakaway had reached the final km all together? 

Family Ties

Nothing supports the idea of "nature versus nurture" more strongly than family ties in sports. The human physique, perhaps more than psychology and other less visible markers of human quality, evokes genetic advantage, and cycling has its share of family ties. In this post we share a few cycling family stories.

Serse and Fausto Coppi: brotherly love,
from  http://www.webalice.it/pl.cortesi/Serse&FaustoPR1949.jpg .

One of the better-known examples to English-speaking fans is Nicolas Roche of Ag2R-LaMondiale, son of Irish cycling legend Stephen Roche who married a French woman. Father Stephen was best known for achieving the treble in 1987: winning the Giro d'Italia, Tour de France, and World Championship. Son Nicolas has been a GC leader or co-leader first with Cofidis and recently with Ag2R. He has won the Irish National Championship several times, and has nearly broken into the top-ten of the Tour de France. He has expressed his wish to switch teams for next year, and we are eager to know what he will do next. Even when riding a big race, he shares his thoughts on his blog for the Irish Independent.

2012 Olympics Road Race Preview

Surely Great Britain (GB) sprinter Mark Cavedish (Team Sky)'s stage wins in the Tour de France have earned him top listing in most sports bets to win the Olympics Road Race on his team's home roads in London. With Team Sky effectively acting as the surrogate GB national team, that means that they have honed their sprinting train in the TdF. London's course has earned a reputation as being flat, and therefore would be advantageous for a sprinting team.

Photo by SurreyNews.  Distributed under CC BY-ND 2.0.

But poring over maps and profiles doesn't bring one closer to the experience and insight from riding it. For that, we tip our helmet to Fabrizio Viani who is a London local sharing his experience on his excellent blog.

What does it take for Mark Cavendish to win, or conversely, what does it take to beat him? Here's our take on the race, and predictions of the race.

FdJ: A Classics Powerhouse in the Making?

The win of Nacer Bouhanni in the French national championship road race, with teammate Arnaud Demare in second place, further reveals the worth of Francaise des Jeux's investments in their many young guns. All season long we have pondered the apparent friendly competition between Arnaud Demare and Yauheni Hutarovich, both having finished in the top ten of Kuurne-Brussels-Kurrne, and now Bouhanni has emerged as a contender for the sprints himself. Fans speak of Hutarovich as if he were "over the hill", but the fact of matter is that Hutarovichs is still 29 years old, Demare is merely 20, and Bouhanni is only 21.

Photo by Laurie Beylier under license CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Andy Schleck's Exit: Good News for Some, Bad for Others?

With Andy Schleck's misfortunate meriting coverage even on mainstream media, we have to revise our Komentaar of only days ago. All the non-starters reminded us of the start of the spring classics season, with injury list ever-increasing.

It seems generally agreed that the GC race is shaping up to be a two-horse race between Cadel Evans (BMC) and Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky). Notably, both of them are roleurs who excel at time-trials but can keep up with most climbers at the high mountains. Both are in excellent shape, with Wiggins fresh off a dominating performance in le Dauphiné and Evans a consistent performance plus stage wins and near-wins. Team Sky may be the stronger team compared to BMC, unless Team Sky's super-sprinter Mark Cavendish shows up and brings a few riders specifically to support him in the sprints. More importantly however, both Evans and Wiggins appear very confident as the Tour de France (TdF) approaches.

With all the above consideration, what does this mean to stage hunters, sprinters, and GC contenders?

Sagan the Żagań

Nowadays, few riders make news the same way Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Cannondale) does, that is by not winning a race or a stage. So complete is Sagan's domination of stage-hunting in short stage races from the Tour de Suisse, Tour of Oman, Tirreno-Adriatico, to the Tour of California and the Tour of Poland.

Given his punchy characteristics, and his performance in the last edition of Milano-Sanremo, is Sagan a credible classics contender?

From Brendan Ryan, shared under CC BY-BC-SA 2.0. 

Komentaar - 13 June 2012

With the biggest race of the season - the Tour de France (TdF) - looming just over the horizon, here in the ClassiquesKlassiekerClassiche headquarters we ponder the usual: how will our classics warriors fare in this year's TdF?

We start with the route and stages, and we finish with short comments on riders.