Olympic cycling race

[Booldawg]

Not sure if they still do this but;

In a certain olympic velodrome cycling event one of the cyclist slows down to a crawl and it looks like he's waiting for the other opponent to 'make his move'.

Never understood whats going on? What is the purpose of it?

[snags]

Tactics. To force your opponent to take the lead, giving you the advantage of surprise as they won't know when you will decide to break for the lead (I prob. could have written that better but it makes sense to me) ;-p

[Booldawg]

thanks snags! I get it now. I'd just pedal like bu66ery so they couldnt take the lead ;-)

[snags]

lol... also... that's why you sometimes see both riders almost at a complete standstill... waiting for each other to be forced to take the lead as if you put a foot down you lose...

[Booldawg]

I wonder how that tactic first developed? TBH its no different than a standard circuit race. Imagine in they starting adopting that technique in the 400m running race; dropping to a walking pace for the last 100m to see who's going to make a sprint for it first!

[snags]

See the '200m Sprint/Match Sprint' a third of the way down this page:

http://www.trackcycli...ticle&id=53&Itemid=63

[R1Geezer]

Oddly enough, this is sprint cycling. Early on they did go hell for leather at the start but the guy who tucked in behind usually won so they developed this tactical approach. They try and use the slope for extra acceleration for example. They only time the last 200 metres.

[New Judge]

Cycling has some strange events. I find the "Keirin" the most strange:

http://news.bbc.co.uk...d_3650000/3650963.stm

[MantaRay]

I'd much rather see cycle races against the clock, or formula 1 style quali laps. Proper sprint racing against the clock would be much more exciting to watch. The current tactical nonsense looks just stupid to me. Oh and as for watching the riders following that stupid derny bike for x laps....