The Olympic track racing fires off tomorrow and it’s time to remember an event discarded to the bin of noble sports.
The Olympic roster of events is constantly evolving and devolving which is why we are now watching synchronized diving as an Olympic sport. What a world, what a world. Maybe it’s a sign of me getting too old but it makes me sick. Who does this sport? Who says let’s go down to the public pool and work on our synchronized diving? No one, that’s who. Did the IOC get bribed by Big Diving? Diving is barely watchable, adding another diver who does the exact same thing adds little. Yes, I’m biased, yes, I don’t understand it. Send your hate mail to Condoleezza Rice, c/o Stanford University, I don’t want it.
Years ago Olympic road cycling cancelled the 100km four-man team time trial and I’m still bitter about that! The four-man TT was a killer event. The time was on the third rider to cross the finish line. A four person team could barely afford to lose one rider. One flat, a bonk, do we wait, do we go? This had to be decided on the road by the team while riding on the razor’s edge of anaerobic doom.
Olympic track lost the tandem match sprint. Track is also losing the individual pursuit events this year for reasons I can’t imagine. Thank you, UCI. The tandem sprint was no flash in the pan event, introduced into the Olympics in 1908. It was finally terminated after the 1972 games. God damn it, what’s not to love? We keep thinking Cav is the fastest cyclist but track sprinters are faster. Imagine two super fast riders on one bike racing another matched pair. One pair of legs does the driving, one pair just to stoke. The stoker could also be the second pair of eyes for the driver but really his mission was to plant his face against the small of the driver’s back and spin that bike up to over 85 kph! The tactics were the same as the regular match sprint. There were track stands, jumps and bumps: it was just faster and more awesome.
I don’t know the reasoning behind the decision in 1972 but I’m here to say things were a little weird back then, many bad decisions went down in the early ’70s. The Bee Gees made it to number sixteen in the American music charts and they were not terminated with extreme prejudice right then, before it was too late.
Here is some footage of a past World Championship just to demonstrate the awesome.
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Just watching heat 537 of the 50m freestyle, luckily this 2002 Shiraz is not too contankerous.
I have the good fortune of going on the occasional training ride with Australia's sight impaired pursuit and RR men's pair. It is awesome to watch the co-ordination of those two. Out of saddle, brake, corner etc. Great to draft behind on the flat for a grimpeur like me as well, can they motor!
Its good the Olympics gives the nerds plenty of chances to compete, table tennis for fucks sake.
@ChrisO what happened in 1960?
@ralasdair they have vision impaired pursuitraces where there is a sighted pilot. A tandem match sprint puts the bikes at somewhat closer quarters!
@minion kiwis just turned up at the rowing. See how much better they are without you?
@brett
I assume you came to that conclusion after noticing the lack of testicles?
@frank
For the longest time, I thought his avatar was the fish from Finding Nemo...
@Marcus
Kimberly Crow has it pretty tough - not only is she a freak athlete, she's a freaky genius, too.
My wife taught her, so I know she got a perfect 50 in Specialist Maths (AP Calculus for you Yanks) when in tenth grade, along with a perfect in French, too. (actually, I'm citing second hand info - sue me if my wife's memory is not perfect)I think she continued in that vein in eleventh and twelfth grade, too, doing Uni maths cos when you smash the hardest maths subject in tenth grade you need to go somewhere with it. She has gained a law degree in amongst the training for world class sport and works part time as a lawyer.
@Oli
Yep, which is counted as an endurance event. Sprint events are kieren, team and match sprint. Madison, scratch, points and I suppose (WTF? It's a warm up race for kids) now devil takes the hindmost are endurance events (along with pursuits).
@Marcus
Yep. If I'mnot there they do well. If you, on the other hand were competing for Australia in just about anything you'd improve their performance. Mostly through crying, which seems to be what the teams gonna be remembered for.
FML if I'm not there, and crying is gonna be what everyone remembers the Australian team for.
@mouse
Aside from the men's RR, which I watched for the last 20 km, I haven't seen any of it. Was in a bar last night with some pals after soccer and hard to miss the big televisions showing the games. You're not alone. I have very, very little interest in any of it. Synchronized diving was on. Ugh. Then Schleck playing volleyball. Not interested. Definitely not an exciting sporting event for me.