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Great Britain’s vaunted road racers fail to medal
In the Olympic men's road race, all the hype turned out to be tripe. Remember how Great Britain was just supposed to be too strong and Mark Cavendish would surely get a shot at winning the 250-km road race in a sprint finish, his wheelhouse? And how that caused all but the most loyal supporters in Canada to somewhat ignore Ryder Hesjedal?
Well, it hardly went according to plan. Cavendish finished behind the breakaway pack at 29th, with Kazakhstan's Alexandre Vinokourov taking gold 12 years his silver in Sydney. Leaving the technical nuances of cycling aside — there are always countless riders in the field who can win — it is some egg in the face for the host nation. Great Britain, with six racers in the field, couldn't react at the decisive moment.
Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins placed 103rd, well behind Canada's Ryder Hesjedal's in 63rd.
Team GB came under pressure all day, especially on the hilly circuit, and mostly resisted in textbook fashion, but fatally were unable to react when a number of riders went away just before they exited Box Hill for the last time, and they were on the backfoot thereafter in a thrilling chase back to the finish at the Mall. Nobody wanted to help them - and who would if the result of that was to face Cavendish in a sprint finish?
So for the second time the Olympics have ended in disappointment for Cavendish, who was the only British rider not to win a medal on the track in China.
The Olympic race, with its much smaller teams, is always the most difficult to control on the circuit and the initial break went away after 20km, in curious fashion in that it consisted mostly of the riders you would usually expect to see "policing" the break. (BBC)
Hesjedal, considering the fact he has to lone-wolf it as Canada's only entry in the road race, stood little chance of medalling, although he moved up in the pack toward the end of the race. The Giro d'Italia winner still has the individual time trial ahead on Wednesday, Day 5.
Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Contact him at neatesager@yahoo.ca and follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.
