My next question is - why didn't they drop Cav off and go for it?
Not nice as a team but it's individuals not a team isn't it?
None of the GB team other than Cav are particularly strong at sprinting. So that chances are that if they just left cav behind and pushed on, they would just end up dragging somebody who is a stronger sprinter and then being outsprinted.
He might be world #1 but maybe one of the others should have forgot that and just gone for it?
Cav wasnt chosen as the team leader because of his reputation or status. He was chosen because of the way he earned those things. He is the fastest sprinter in the world and if they had managed to pull in the break, he probably would have won.
The GB tactic was to focus completely on Cav. Sacrifice the chances of everybody else in the team to try and set Cav up for the win. Obviously, this is a risk, and it didnt pay off this time, but i still think it was the best thing we could have done. Other teams had different tactics, USA, for example, have Tyler Farrar, who is a very good sprinter, but they gambled on putting a few guys in the break. So they had a chance of winning it whether or not the break got caught but the guys in the break were not great sprinters (althoug, Phinney got 4th i think?, so that's good for him) and Farrar would have been left on his own if it had come to a bunch sprint because the guys who were in the break would be too tired to help him.
You would expect everyone who had a rider in the top group to NOT help team GB chase them down as that could effect the outcome and they could go from gold to nowhere if there's a group. Wasn't it just the kazak guy and a columbian so the worst they could do is finish silver whereas if the group caught them up they would be nowhere....
Yep, if you have a team mate in the breakaway, you dont do any work to help chase him down. The breakaway was very big and there were a lot of different nationalities represented, so that worked against GB as not many people wanted to help.
The 2 guys who were 1st and 2nd sprinted away from the breakaway of around 33 riders at the 1kilometre to go point. When you are going very fast and you are that close to the end, it takes a lot of effort to catch those 2 again and you dont have time to recover to sprint for the end.
So what do you do if your behind those 2 in the lead group? Do you chase it yourself and then the other 30 guys in that group come flying past you on the line when you're knackered? Or do you wait and hope somebody else will chase?
If you watch the group behind when the 2 guys first sprint away you can see somebody working on the front trying to chase them down, then he moves to the side to let somebody else do some work, but nobody will help him, so the 2 in front build up a big lead and take the win.
For me thats the beauty of cycling I don't really know of any other sport where politics and tactics play such a major role.
Thats why they call it "Chess on wheels"
Good save there, inches from the barrier