Terrible sportsmanship from Team GB road race team

rubberduck · 28 Jul 2012 at 20:02

Really poor show to be honest, they got beat fair and square... Not congratulating the winner and making out the whole field was against them was almost pathetic... I know with road racing the way the race shapes out can either play in to your hands or not... That's sports unfortunately, it happens... Take it on the chin and be humble! Don't make out everyone was out to screw you over!

Shimmyhill · 28 Jul 2012 at 20:16

The other teams made sure GB were not a threat, bad sportsmanship on their part.

rubberduck · 28 Jul 2012 at 20:19

Shimmyhill said:
The other teams made sure GB were not a threat, bad sportsmanship on their part.

No, the teams that didn't want a sprint tried to make sure that a sprint didn't happen.... The fact that a sprint would have favoured team GB is neither here nor there.

Shimmyhill · 28 Jul 2012 at 20:25

They did that as Cav would have beaten them in a Sprint, letting the GB team do all the work at the front of the peleton was poor form and done to stop them, not to get medals or dictate the race but to stop GB - they stopped Cav first and hoped someone from their team could win - just glad none of them did even if we do have an ex doper with a gold...

Vonhelmet · 28 Jul 2012 at 20:35

Road cycling seems a curious exercise in game theory. If everyone takes their share of the load, then everyone has a better chance of winning. If everyone lets one team bear the load, for whatever reason, then none of them will win. The peloton left the hard work to team GB and so none of them won, because they were beaten by the breakaway group. If the peloton had shared the work then they might have had a better chance of catching the breakaway group.

tonym · 28 Jul 2012 at 20:35

pre1twa said:
No, the teams that didn't want a sprint tried to make sure that a sprint didn't happen.... The fact that a sprint would have favoured team GB is neither here nor there.

Rubbish, the winner was interviewed and he even mentioned Team Sky's dominance in the TDF....... They all knew what to do to snuff out GB's dominance.
To say otherwise is frankly naive.

Slam62 · 28 Jul 2012 at 20:41

Yeah well, why couldn't they just keep up with the leading group, over confident IMO mind you I know very little about it.

I thought the Scottish bird was very rude to the winner after he had ridden a fantastic race.

Mad old tory · 28 Jul 2012 at 20:41

I think the OP is reading too much into a couple of comments. Fact is if it was a bunch sprint Team GB would have won so they tried to nullify that and the other big nations shot themselves in the foot accordingly.

There's not bad sportmanship in any of it. Team GB tried to do it on their own and couldn't with only a 5 man team (it was 8 last year in the World Champs iirc). The other teams tried to nullify the threat and it ended up with a big breakaway keeping the distance.

Mad old tory · 28 Jul 2012 at 20:42

Slam62 said:
Yeah well, why couldn't they just keep up with the leading group, over confident IMO mind you I know very little about it.

I thought the Scottish bird was very rude to the winner after he had ridden a fantastic race.

They would have expended too much energy keeping up with the breakaway as a 5 man team in all likelihood and couldn't have given a decent leadout to Cav

tonym · 28 Jul 2012 at 20:45

Vonhelmet said:
Road cycling seems a curious exercise in game theory. If everyone takes their share of the load, then everyone has a better chance of winning. If everyone lets one team bear the load, for whatever reason, then none of them will win. The peloton left the hard work to team GB and so none of them won, because they were beaten by the breakaway group. If the peloton had shared the work then they might have had a better chance of catching the breakaway group.

100% right. The peleton left the work to the GB team and lost out because of it.

dante6491 · 28 Jul 2012 at 20:47

The Slovaks had Peter Sagan and I think the Germans had two sprinters. Neither team had any racers in the break away pack so it was in their interest to push the peloton faster yet they didn't (I think a German was in the mix for a while but dropped out for Wednesday). Other teams geared around sprinting didn't either. It appeared they didn't mind losing as long as Team GB didn't win.

touch · 28 Jul 2012 at 21:01

dante6491 said:
The Slovaks had Peter Sagan

Peter Sagan IS the slovakian team. They are only entitled to 1 entry.
Germany was the only team with 5 riders who didnt have a man in the break. The next strongest team after germany who didnt have anybody in the break was, IMO, the 3man Polish team, and they dont have a sprinter, so why would they chase?

George Hincapie · 28 Jul 2012 at 21:09

touch said:
Peter Sagan IS the slovakian team. They are only entitled to 1 entry.
Germany was the only team with 5 riders who didnt have a man in the break. The next strongest team after germany who didnt have anybody in the break was, IMO, the 3man Polish team, and they dont have a sprinter, so why would they chase?

If you could only have one rider in your team then he's not a bad one to have eh? Shame he didn't get in the break TBH.

dante6491 · 28 Jul 2012 at 21:13

touch said:
Peter Sagan IS the slovakian team. They are only entitled to 1 entry.
Germany was the only team with 5 riders who didnt have a man in the break. The next strongest team after germany who didnt have anybody in the break was, IMO, the 3man Polish team, and they dont have a sprinter, so why would they chase?

Why compete if you aren't going for the win?

touch · 28 Jul 2012 at 21:18

dante6491 said:
Why compete if you aren't going for the win?

They are going for the win, but they wont win from a sprint.

They missed their chance to get in the break. If they sit on and hope that everything comes back together, they might have another chance to do something. If they work to chase the break, they are just guaranteeing that they wont get another chance.

rubberduck · 28 Jul 2012 at 22:59

Vonhelmet said:
Road cycling seems a curious exercise in game theory. If everyone takes their share of the load, then everyone has a better chance of winning. If everyone lets one team bear the load, for whatever reason, then none of them will win. The peloton left the hard work to team GB and so none of them won, because they were beaten by the breakaway group. If the peloton had shared the work then they might have had a better chance of catching the breakaway group.

Reminds me of governing dynamics... I don't really understand what that is but I remember the film 'a beautiful mind' where Russell Crowe is in the bar with his university spods and goes on about if they all ignore the fit blonde girl they have a better chance of success with the other girls

Anyway... Team GB lost the race... its that simple... There is not a conspiracy amongst the other teams to make sure they don't win...Each team had their own strategy and did what they thought was best to maximise their chances of winning... It didn't work out for team GB... that's road racing and that is competitive sport. Deal with it!

rubberduck · 28 Jul 2012 at 23:02

dante6491 said:
Why compete if you aren't going for the win?

Plenty of athletes are going to the olympics with essentially zero chance of winning... Surely they are still proud to represent their country and give 100%?

rubberduck · 29 Jul 2012 at 01:39

Have just seen the interview with Cavendish where he was asked if the efforts of the team during the tour de France had an influence on the road race. His reply; "Do you know even anything about cycling? stop asking stupid questions."

Again, what a terrible attitude and such a bad loser! Based on this its a farce he won SPOTY last year despite his achievements

Number_25 · 29 Jul 2012 at 01:50

If you're the best, and it's at home - people are going to pick up their competitiveness against you a bit.

Nobody complains when clubs go to Old Trafford and pick up their game, why should it be different in cycling?

cu3ed · 29 Jul 2012 at 01:53

Thought his attitude stank and couldn't care less what he's won in the past if he gets on like that. If he has a point to make about what happened during the race, stand and argue and explain your point. Don't act like a pos.