Velominati Super Prestige: Women’s Olympic Road Race 2016

The 2012 Olympic Road Race was epic.

In contrast to the Men’s race in 2012, the Women’s event was epic; torrential rains, an elite breakaway, a nail-biting sprint finish, and a finish line interview with Lizzie Armitstead that changed the face of Women’s road racing for ever.

Marianne Vos crushed fools that day, with four of those fools coming along on the erand. Through epic Rule #9 conditions, the break held off the chasing bunch, leaving it to a two-up sprint between her and Armistead. Fast forward four years, and Lizzie is at the top of the sport with Vos coming back from injury. But the course suits them both, and Vos has starting winning a bit again. It could be a repeat, or an underdog goes clear. Either way, the racing is sure to be phenomenal. Buckle your seatbelts, people.

Check the start list, maybe check the 10 Riders to Watch list, and get your picks in by the time the clock goes to zero, and good luck.

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frank

The founder of Velominati and curator of The Rules, Frank was born in the Dutch colonies of Minnesota. His boundless physical talents are carefully canceled out by his equally boundless enthusiasm for drinking. Coffee, beer, wine, if it’s in a container, he will enjoy it, a lot of it. He currently lives in Seattle. He loves riding in the rain and scheduling visits with the Man with the Hammer just to be reminded of the privilege it is to feel completely depleted. He holds down a technology job the description of which no-one really understands and his interests outside of Cycling and drinking are Cycling and drinking. As devoted aesthete, the only thing more important to him than riding a bike well is looking good doing it. Frank is co-author along with the other Keepers of the Cog of the popular book, The Rules, The Way of the Cycling Disciple and also writes a monthly column for the magazine, Cyclist. He is also currently working on the first follow-up to The Rules, tentatively entitled The Hardmen. Email him directly at rouleur@velominati.com.

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Steve Trice says:

Aug 8 2016 at 12:03 am

I tend to agree @ChrisO, the art of descending at this level is knowing your parameters and knowing the consequences of exceeding them. A lot of the criticism seems to have been levelled at the edges of the road (the tarmac just stops and then there's a drop) and what a rider falls on to if they do come off. Certainly that kerbing looked high, but a road edge is a road edge, if you hit a kerb, a verge or a ride into trench at 60, 70, 80 kph you'll crash and burn. That crash netting was noticeable as well, you don't see that in many races, hence the legendary stories of riders surviving falls into Alpine ravines etc. Having said all that there were a lot of falls, for which we can partly blame rider error, but there do seem to have been a lot of fairly serious injuries - Porte, Nibali, and Van Vleuten prime amongst them, so maybe there are lessons to be learned. Certainly Chris Boardman and Mick Bennett seem to think so.

Glad to read that AVV is on the mend, albeit still in intensive care. My first thoughts were a lot worse than the spinal fractures and severe concussion that she has suffered.
RobSandy says:

Aug 8 2016 at 12:45 am

@ChrisO

@Bespoke

@Pali65

Oh my god, that was a nasty crash! Fingers crossed for the poor lady :(

I wonder if this course transgressed the line in unnecessary risk for the riders.

I’m no expert but I would say so. So many skilled riders, including renowned descenders, hitting the deck. It doesn’t seem right to me that a race should be so dominated by such a specific ability while exposing so many to such danger.

Except in both cases less noted descenders were OK. It punished those who pushed the boundaries not those who stayed within them.

And ironically had Nibali/Henaio and Van Vleuten eased back a bit on the descent they would all be wearing medals now.

Totally agree. There wasn't much margin for error on the descent, but all these riders know that you only win races if you stay rubber side up. And it wasn't like whole big groups of riders were crashing off; it was ones and twos who were really pushing it. Mind you, I don't know the circumstances of GT's crash - he's normally a very reliable descender.

Also, was it just me or did it start to rain a little on the descents in both the men's and woman's race? Can't have helped.

Glad to hear AVV is ok - I thought the worst when I saw the crash and that she didn't move afterwards. Interesting she locked the front wheel up - don't see that often.
piwakawaka says:

Aug 8 2016 at 12:59 am

@RobSandy

I thought she locked up the rear, over corrected the slide and then high sided as the tyre grabbed again?
Mikael Liddy says:

Aug 8 2016 at 4:28 am

@piwakawaka

Having reached the outer limits of Rule #64 in a pretty similar manner (luckily only doing in a collar bone in the process), I'm guessing she's grabbed two handfuls of brake when she noticed the corner was much tighter than expected, locking & skidding the rear first before the front locked throwing her in to a high-side.
Ron says:

Aug 13 2016 at 11:17 am

Does anyone have a link to a rebroadcast? I'd like to watch those final 25 k again. Thanks!
KogaLover says:

Sep 6 2016 at 11:45 pm

Update: Van Vleuten (who crashed horribly) won yesterday's prologue of the Ronde van België. She's back!