Alexandre Vinokourov, Gold Medalist.
If you didn't stay up to watch Channel 9's so called 'coverage' of the Men's Olympic Road Race last night it would have been a little surprising to wake up to this news.
For those of who did stay up, we were lucky enough to see one exciting race. There were attacks galore, a couple of crashes, and a standoff that lead to the break surviving. Then Colombian Rigoberto Uran attacked with Vinokourov following close behind, but in the end the Kazakh's experience won out and he took the gold.
It was an interesting race indeed. The group of 11 riders who established a break early on, which included Australian Stuart O'Grady, were in the box seat, whilst Team Great Britain were left to fend for themselves on the front of the Peloton. Noone was willing to help pull the break back, when they knew that if it ended in the bunch sprint Mark Cavendish was almost assured to be victorious.
After the race Cavendish had a few words to say including: 'We did everything we could. The crowd was tremendous the whole way around, but the Aussies just raced negatively.'
The fact is, (ducking for cover), Mark is quite right. And believe me, it is not very often I agree with Cav!
It is true noone wanted to help out, the peloton were riding defensively all that is, apart from Great Britain. There was a little help from Germany, but it was mainly left to Great Britain to do all the work.
Yes, Mark was probably going to win in a bunch sprint, but isn't that a defeatist attitude.? 'Oh well, we can't win if we bring Cav to the line, so stuff that' Last I knew there were three medals up for grabs at Olympic events. Isn't Silver and Bronze better than nothing? I'm sure Uran and Kristoff think so.
For the Aussies, yes Stuart O'Grady was in the break, but seriously he was never going to win. Perhaps the Stuey of ten years ago may have had a chance, but against the likes of the break which included Vino, Cancellara, Gilbert and LL Sanchez it would have been a tough, tough ask for O'Grady.
Again I question the tactics of Matt White. The question has to be asked. Why didn't the Aussies join in the chase? Why didn't the Germans do more?
The truth comes too little too late, and of course hindsight is a wonderful thing. But there are also other factors to consider that contributed to the outcome of the race, such as the smaller team sizes (5 riders) and of course no race radios.
But, as much as I'm not really a Vino fan (remember he stole the win on the Champs Elysees from Robbie in '05 when I was there to see my Robbie win!!!), he deserves the Gold. He rode smart, he took his chance and now has the Glory.
Do you agree with Cav? Do you think the Aussies should have harder raced for a medal?
