Watching the Olympics is always easy and actually watching athletes do something as well as it can be done is the most gratifying thing for me. Achievement and greatness are defined by the World’s best being the best. But, more than that, it’s hopefully what we are all striving for in some small way but, no matter how we compete, knowing that you are witnessing somebody define their life’s athletic effort in a few moments is a gift. I never try to forget that when I see their elation, what a release it must be.

Watching the Men’s Road Race coverage was great, despite it being chopped up into several segments. My personal highlight was Fabian Cancellara’s bridge to two chasers, and then his subsequent bridge to the three leaders on the final lap. It was, aside from Michael Phelps‘ swimming, the most impressive thing I have seen so far. Obviously the Olympics are just getting started but that was an awesome event and an incredible ride. Congrats of course to to winner Sammy Sanchez, the Spaniard has been impressive the entire season. Cancellara, the only Swiss rider in the Men’s race, finished third.

In the Women’s Road Race Nicole Cooke took Gold, great pictures are on every cycling website and again. the coverage on TV was pretty chopped up. No complaints though, it was great to seee these races on NBC’s main channel at a reasonable hour. In the rain, obviously fatigued, the pictures are fantastic. That Road Race reminded me of the ‘93 World’s, just grisly and hard with riders crossing the line with zero in the tank.

Something I noticed is that it seems there were lots of shots from the front and you could see the rider’s faces. I think the Chinese have really done a great job in allowing media to purely capture many events, the road races were a great example.

One note (SRAM RED plug alert!) if you want to see the perfect set-up of SRAM RED go to PEZcyclingnews.com and click on the 08 Women’s RR coverage. The fifth picture down is a nice side shot of Nicole’s RED SL’s as she is racing. Check out how smooth and perfect the transition is from stem to bars to the shift levers, its perfectly level, perhaps its why she won?

 share