A few days off after the Tour
de France and now it’s back to work again with the Olympic road race on
Saturday the 28th of July. It’s the perfect opportunity for the
producers to show off London and the historical sights from the helicopter
cameras and hopefully we will get a great start of the Games with this road
race.
The route:
With its
250 kilometers the Olympic road race is one of the longest one day races on the
calendar (about the same lengths as the Sunday Spring Classics). The riders
start out at 10:00 (UK time) on the The Mall in London and hereafter head
south-west to cross the River Thames at Putney Bridge. Going into Surrey the
race will start for real with 9 laps of 15,5 km on the Box Hill circuit. The
climb itself isn’t that hard but after nine laps no wild cards will be handed
out for the finale. After the last lap there are still about 50 kilometers to
go before the riders finish on The Mall next to Buckingham Palace in the center
of London around 16:00 (UK time).
The favorite:
There is
one (and only one!) massive favorite
for the Olympic gold medal and that is of course Mark Cavendish. Since he won
the Olympic test event back in August last year and the World Champions just a
month later everything has been build around winning gold on home soil for the
fast Manxman. Cavendish changed his training and diet and lost four kilos over
the winter - all so he shouldn’t get dropped on the nine laps of Box Hill. Before
the Tour de France this year Cavendish said that; “I will not be as successful
in the Tour as I have been in the past. I will win stages but I may not win
five. My sprint has suffered a little bit, but I am so much faster than the
others anyway I can afford to lose a few percent in the sprint in order to be
able to get to the line”. Mark Cavendish won three stages in the Tour, two of
those within the last three days which shows that his condition is exactly as
good as it needs to be in order to take the Olympic gold medal.
Mark
Cavendish also has one of the strongest team in the race to protect him.
Bradley Wiggins (Tour winner), Chris Froome (Tour runner up), David Millar
(Tour stage winner) and Ian Stannard (British champion) have all showed great
shape within the last few weeks and even though they are only four riders (and
not 9 like when Cavendish won the World Champion in Denmark last year) I think
they will manage to make sure that Mark Cavendish will take the first gold
medal for Great Britain at the Olympic Games.
 |
| Mark Cavendish won the Olympic Test Event in front of Sacha Modolo. |
The outsiders:
As stated,
I think this will come down to a sprint. Not a typical Tour de France bunch
sprint with a big peloton together in the end, but probably around 40 riders.
One of my personal outsiders is Sacha Modolo from Italy. The young Italian might
have surprised some of you when he took 4th place in Milano-San Remo
in 2010 and even though he hasn’t been winning as much as he should have the
last two years, he is still a very strong rider on the course like this one.
Hasn’t he been working so hard for Daniele Bennati at the World Champions last
year, I’m sure he would have been near the podium in that sprint and don’t
forget that Modolo actually got 2nd in the Olympic test event last
year Lately Sacha Modolo won two stages in Tour of Austria plus he took 3rd
place on the stage of Tour de Pologne with the hard uphill cobblestones finish
won by Zdenek Stybar.
The Italian team is almost as strong as the British one
and even though they will be riding a lot more aggressively they still have
fast riders like Matteo Trentin (or Elia Viviani) and Luca Paolini to help out Modolo in the end.
I will honestly be surprised if this road race ends without an Italian medal of
some kind (you can be s.u.r.e. that Vincenzo Nibali will come a strong attack
at some point in the final…).
The joker:
There is
one guy that you simply can’t count out for the this race; Peter Sagan! The
Slovakian ‘Tourminator’ destroyed all competition for the Green Jersey in the
Tour de France with three stage wins and I actually think he could have won an
additional won two or three stages with a little bit of luck. One of these was
the last stage in Paris, where he got caught up behind Andre Greipel in the
final corner and had to close a gap of 10 meters before trying to pass
Cavendish. Had Sagan been in the wheel of Goss I think he would have won that
stage…
Anyway,
this is the Olympics and the big difference here is that Peter Sagan won’t have
anyone to help him. And I really mean no one! Peter Sagan is the only Slovakian
rider (the system is fucked, sorry, because Bulgaria has two riders, Brazil
three, Iran three, Turkey three and even Malaysia has one more than Slovakia
with two riders on the start list). Being without team mates also means that
Sagan will have to get back to the cars to get water and food by himself and
that will probably drain him a tiny bit more than for example Cavendish and the
other contenders with a strong team to help out. Still, if Peter Sagan is in
the front group in the final only very few riders will be able to beat him and
that means at least a bronze medal for the Slovakian wonder kid.
 |
| Peter Sagan won three Tour stages and made it look easy. |
Winner
pick: Mark Cavendish
Outsider:
Sacha Modolo
Joker:
Peter Sagan
