Team GB reflect on how it all went wrong

Naive question (possible) but in the road race team tactics say my enemies enemy is my friend and not supporting team GB to catch the breakaway by not giving 100% effort to gain an disadvantage for some isn't that what the badminton teams did

Just an after thought,if there had been gold silver and bronze for team as well then negative tactics would surely have gone out the window.

I would be interested to know what the criteria are for an Olympic road race (if any). I wonder why they chose 9 laps of Box Hill and 250KM ? Would it not have been possible to make the route more Cavendish/sprinter friendly given that at least 3 years ago it could have been anticipated that we had a world class sprinter with a chance of winning. Home advantage could perhaps have been employed to make it less likely that a break would succeed as happened in both races. Have we tried to be fair to all nations at the expense of our own team ...............or doesn't it work like that ? Given the opportunity I'm sure that other Olympic host nations would design a course to suit their home riders ?

I agree again - couldn't (and shouldn't) really miss someone like Cancellara nipping off up the road

they have eyes, though, and they were right at the front watching who was going up the road. no real excuse for not knowing who was in the break

Quote:

we missed the decisive move of the race

This.

Also, I can't say I much care who wins really* but I do like to see animated racing. A race that spent 250km under firm control and ended up with a sprint finish that Cav won would have been exciting, but not as exciting as what we got. Chapeau Gilbert, O'Grady, Rogers, Cancellara, Uran and even Vino for some exciting times.

* as long as it isn't Vino. Oh.

I personally think it was naive of team GB to not switch plans when the break was forming. It's all very well having a plan A that everyone knows about, and let's not forget it worked a treat at the World Championships. But in a one-day race you simply can't afford to let 30 men go down the road when it's just been you on the front all day and you know you're not going to get any help. not just 30 no-hopers either, Cancellara and Boonen and Vino and a whole bunch of other serious riders. It was never going to come back together after that.

whether that meant the whole team going or sending one man, whatever. cav says he had the legs to go; he should have gone. as it was the team underestimated the strength of the break. You can blame the aussies or the germans if you want, but we missed the decisive move of the race. that's not their fault.

Who else wants to see an olympic stage race?

For those who say Britain should have had a plan B, like get someone in the break, they simply did not have men spare to do that. Cutting your train to three would have essentially meant no chance of riding the break down and so poof goes your plan A. Britain were absolutely right to go with Cav. The Aussies were evidently mistaken not to help out (pinning your hopes on O'Grady would have made sense only half a decade ago) and the Germans offered too little too late. Had they both bothered they, along with GB, would have riders with Olympic medals right now.

Absolute rubbish, Stumpy! These are the Olympics, not the Tour or the Worlds. If one of the teams that had a man in the break helped to chase them down, Cav takes the line and GB wins gold. The only chance the others had for a gold medal (that is after all what the Olympics are about) was to keep GB away from the break and hope their countryman could take the line.

GB should have put a man into the break when they saw what was happening. It's not rocket science...it's a one day race and yes, Cav should have tried to hit it if he had the legs. If not him, then certainly Froomey could have been launched off the front. As it was, hats off to the 4 Brits doing the work for Cavendish as they really rode their legs off. I only hope that they didn't waste Wiggins for Wednesday.

Personally i think some of the comments on here are utter crap.

Even if GB had said we have plan A - Z the rest of the world would not help as they knew Cav was going to win. The germans with Griepel and aussies with Goss were the main rivals to Cav and it was obvious that they were not interested just shows how much they think of the Olympics.

Even though the aussies had a man up ahead they didnt do one thing to help so i'm sure both Goss and Griepel were over the moon and in the end even when Vino and Uran jumped off the front the rest couldn't match it as all they had been doing was keeping the pressure on so that Cav didnt catch up and they didnt have the legs to chase the front 2.

But i hope they are all feeling really proud that they set out to spoil rather than win.

I was up on the Box Hill loop, a little up from the u-turn at the back of the loop. GB were always in the front 7 and the only 1 time they came round by me did anyone else come to the fore (That someone being Tony Martin). Also, the break was stacked - O'Grady and Gilbert amongst some other big names.

This route was built for a classics man or a group of strong rouleurs, there was no way Cav or any sprinter was going to have a shot at gold. However, nothing should take away from the performance of Team GB - They rode themselves inside-out, and at the end of the day that is all you can ask of them. And anyway, Cav's world champion and Wiggins is the winner of the Tour de France - We know what really counts between that and an Olympic Gold.

Wiggins said that Cav had the legs to chase the breakaway, but he remained true to the plan in the hope the others would deliver. Cav should have made that move, then a very different race would have developed.

If during a stage of the TdF Team Sky had a rider off the front of the peleton their remaining riders wouldn't work to bring the breakaway back to the bunch.

Why did Team GB expect teams like Australia would here?

To announce to the world in advance that there was only a Plan A, and then expect every other country not to plan accordingly suggests Team GB might have been a bit too cocky.

Run the same tactics ten times and Cav would no doubt win sometimes. But a bit naive to think it was going to work every time. And a bit childish to bitch and moan when it didn't.

what a complete fudge-up this brilliant GB Team strategy was!

I don't think it's as simple as 'stop blaming the other nations'. Road racing is highly tactical and there's always an element of 'my enemy's enemy is my friend' amongst the pro teams. All Team GB are saying is that they expected a certain set of tactics to apply which would have involved other nations and it didn't pan out. Apart from Cav of course - I love him to bits but he doesn't half get in a strop when he's disappointed.

Need to stop blaming the other nations. Aussies had someone in the break, so did USA, Spain, Holland, Russia, Belgium.... Get the picture. Teams will not chase down their own riders. The break was simply 2 big to control...
Exception is Germany, but I think the pace of the GB squad throughout the laps killed them off (and the GB guys as well) as they obviously didn't have anything left for the run in. They tried and failed to bring it all back together on the laps... Might have been better to have saved some energy, let the smaller break get a few minutes, then all teams would have helped on the 50k run into the finish.
Game plan was a gamble, it failed. GB didn't lose, the breakaway won.... and a wily Vino got a well deserved gold

I would have thought any sprinter, of any nation, would dream of running a bunch sprint down The Mall in an Olympics road race.
Its obvious that the spiteful bunch in the race yesterday, as Cavendish alluded to, would rather just sit back and not see him win than bother racing.
Its disappointing more than anything.