the teams that should have helped also had sprinters in their midst who would have challenged for the medals, mainly germany and australia. by not doing so they ruled their men out of medal contention as well as GBs

Mate, i used to think exactly the same until i started working with some serious bike enthusiasts, basically the guy at the front works 34% harder than anyone else, so to be at the front means doing the most work, the guys work in teams to keep the energy reserves up, basically taking it in turns to lead, usually the lead cyclists gives a little throw of the elbow and that's the signal to say "im knackered can someone else have a go". Being in the pelaton puts you in a stronger position as a 1 minute lead is nothing if you have a few km's left.



The trouble is if you let too many riders brake away, and they work together, you have no chance of catching them.

If the Germans had helped the British they would have caught the lead pack easily, the Germans also knew though that if they did that they'd still lose to Cavendish, so they selfishly came to the thought, sod it. What makes it worse is that 'i think' the Germans and Brits had worked out before the race joint tactics to beat the Spanish riders.

Surely they should have changed tactics then fairly quickly when it became apparent that nobody would help them? Which was fairly early on because they were always at the front of the peleton. It was pretty tactically naive if they didn't consider the fact that due to how good they are that others would be reluctant to have to run in with Cavendish.



If you need a team to win it, how was the Khazak guy able to do it?



As not a big cycling fan it was strange to hear the commentary professing how brilliant GB were doing when then never seemed to be able to significantly reduce the gap.

The Khazak guy was part of a "team" just not a national one. The breakaway riders worked together as a "team" far better than the peleton.



It wasnt that obvious early on that the tactics weren't working. At one stage the lead was over 6 mins. That was reduced inititally to 3 mins. They then reduced it from 3mins to 1min fairly quickly. Clearly the commentators didnt appreciate just how much that had taken out of GB or just how little help they were going to get.

Boardman made a very pertinent point from old school cycling tactics. If there's more riders in the lead group than chasers in the peleton, then the catch is very unlikely.



Froome was a bit disappointing, Stannard put in a great shift.

But if this Cav is so good and was a 'cert' for a medal then why didnt he just pedal faster and get to the leaders rather than just staying behind with his team mates?



sorry im not trying to be a pest here i just dont understand how it works, i just presumed it was every man for himself.

Can someone tell me why the score is not displayed during the boxing rounds rather than at the end of each round?

It used to be.

We won anything yet?

Yes, by a female rider who learned from the mistakes of her male counterparts.

Because he is fast in the same way that Bolt is fast but imagine how good Bolt would be if he was asked to run a matheron before the last 100 metres.

In all fairness GB did very well, however the closing tactics didn't work as left too late to make any impact and as others have said with the other 'teams'



They did well as a unit to stay at the front of the peleton for most of the race

i dont really think froome was disappointing. his job was to help cav up the boxhill climbs, a similar yet smaller scale task than he performed for wiggins on the tour. once that was done it was down to wiggins stannard and millar to pace him home. dont really think you can blame any of the british riders, thats the way cycling goes sometimes