The 2012 London Summer Olympic Games

[PotomacCyclist]

In case you’ve been living under a rock, the Summer Olympics start next week. The Opening Ceremony is on July 27. For those interested in bike-related sports, the road cycling events (road race, individual time trials) take place on July 28-29 (men’s and women’s road races) and Aug. 1 (individual time trials). There are also multiple track cycling heats and finals over several days.

BMX races take place on Aug. 8-10. Mountain bike races are held on Aug. 11-12.

Cycling schedule: http://www.nbcolympics.com/cycling/results-schedules/index.html

As for triathlon, the women’s race is scheduled for Aug. 4. The men race on Aug. 7.

http://www.nbcolympics.com/triathlon/results-schedules/index.html

Of course, there are other competitions of interest to triathletes (swimming, track and field/marathon) and the general viewing public. Modern pentathlon involves fencing, swimming, equestrian show jumping, cross-country running and laser pistol shooting.

Here is the entire schedule of events from the NBC Olympics website: http://www.nbcolympics.com/results-schedules/index.html

I believe NBC will be showing every event live in some form, whether on the main NBC network, on the NBC-owned cable networks like the NBC Sports Network or on the NBC Olympics website. The primetime broadcasts will be devoted to coverage of the most popular sports, such as swimming, gymnastics and track and field.

---

The Olympics have always been one of my favorite sporting events, even back in grade school. I used to prefer the Winter Olympics because of the high-speed sports (downhill skiing, luge, ski jumping, bobsled, speed skating). But now that I participate in triathlon, running and cycling events (at the non-elite level only), I have more of an interest in the Summer Games.

The Summer Olympics are the main reason that I got into cycling and triathlon as an adult. I did very little endurance exercise from the middle years of college on. After dealing with a shoulder injury, I did some strength training for a few years but nothing too serious. I watched some of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games but I was busy with other things to start exercising on my own, other than the occasional strength workout or 20-min. treadmill session. After the 2004 Summer Olympics, I decided to start swimming for exercise. Again, nothing too serious. Just regular sessions in the pool over the summer and early fall.

It was the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics that got me started on the road to endurance sports. Michael Phelps’s quest for 8 gold medals was exciting to watch. I actually watched a marathon broadcast for the first time ever without getting bored. As for my (not so fast) swimming, I was surprised to discover that I had developed a decent amount of aerobic endurance. Nothing too special but considering that in 2004, I got completely wiped out by swimming a single lap of the pool, I was glad that I could do an easy 2-hr. swim session (mostly breaststroke, and flawed technique at that).

I decided to start training for something, some type of race. My brother had run a few marathons in the past, so I asked him about training. Since I liked swimming, he suggested that I look into triathlons. Back then, I had only a vague idea of what a triathlon was. I didn’t know the order of the sports. I’m not even sure if I could have named the three sports correctly. My brother had never done any triathlons either, but he is a fan of sports in general (especially basketball). (He used to play point guard on his high school team.) So that’s how I decided to start training for triathlons.

[NOTE: The process didn’t go so smoothly. I kept swimming that summer. I didn’t start running until after the Olympics ended. I had decent aerobic endurance but I had some muscle imbalance issues or weaknesses in my quads, particularly the VMO or medial part of the quad. I didn’t know this until after I started running. I ramped up the distances very quickly, getting up to a 6-mile run after just 3 weeks. But that led to a bad case of runner’s knee, which forced me to stop running for nearly two months. After a few more running injuries in the following months, I solved the problem with functional strength training and a smarter approach to base building. I finished an Olympic-distance triathlon in fall 2009. I got past the running injuries too. My last injury was in late summer 2009, although I had some shin splint/tightness problems in late 2009 and early 2010. That went away with strength training too.]

---

Michael Phelps hasn’t been as dominant in recent years but he should still take home more medals this summer. The men’s road cycling events will be tricky, especially for those riders who are competing in the Tour de France. It will be a short turnaround for them.

I don’t follow track cycling that closely, but I know that GC contender Bradley Wiggins has a background in track cycling. That has served him well at this year’s Tour de France, so far.

I’ll be watching many of the cycling, triathlon, swimming and track and field events on TV or online. I’m not a big fan of gymnastics but I’ll usually watch some of the finals because it’s considered one of the key sports of the Summer Games. I usually try to watch some of the Weightlifting events too. It’s amazing to see those men and women heaving up massive amounts of weight. (I do some strength training at various times of the year, but it’s mostly focused on enhancing my endurance sports performance and helping to avoid injury. I don’t do any of the heavy lifting that the strength athletes and weightlifters do.)

By the way, Olympic weightlifting is different from powerlifting. Both involve barbells but the moves are very different.

Topic

[PotomacCyclist]

Supposedly the women could face hail and heavy rain showers on the course during today’s road race.

***
There will also be individual time trial races. Both the women and the men race the TT events on Wed. August 1.

Here’s the full Cycling schedule, including all of the track, mountain bike and BMX events:

http://www.nbcolympics.com/cycling/results-schedules/index.html

There are quite a number of track cycling heats and finals.

***
The triathlon races are on August 4 and 7.

http://www.nbcolympics.com/triathlon/results-schedules/index.html

Modern pentathlon has some interest for triathlon fans, even though it doesn’t include cycling. It does include swimming and a run/shoot combo, along with horse riding and fencing.

http://www.nbcolympics.com/modern-pentathlon/results-schedules/index.html

I only know about modern pentathlon because of Sheila Taormina. She is the first woman to have qualified for the Olympic Games in three different sports: swimming (1996), triathlon (2000, 2004), modern pentathlon (2008). She won a gold medal in 1996 as part of a freestyle relay team.

[KelOnWheels]

This race is exciting!

[PotomacCyclist]

Those red Specialized bikes are confusing me. The only bright red bikes I’ve seen for the past year and a half are the heavy and slow CaBi bikes. It’s strange to see people riding so fast on bright red bikes now.

[KelOnWheels]

That’s what we need for the next Olympics – CaBi racing!

Emma Pooley is teeny! I wonder what size bike she rides?

[Arlingtonrider]

Found on a blog post regarding Emma Pooley’s bike —
“the 48cm Cervelo is the smallest bike made among all the big manufacturers. It FITS smaller than the 44cm women-specific frames you may be looking at. . . . As for Emma Pooley, she rides a stock 48cm frame. She actually came off a team which had “women-specificness” in the team name, but she – like many others – has found that what fits her best is a properly designed geometry, not one marketed as women-specific.”

[Arlingtonrider]

The races are fun to watch live but I miss having commentary.

Update: Now its getting really exciting – 1.6 km to go, in pouring rain. (Vos from the Netherlands, favored to win, came out first.)

[KelOnWheels]

So here’s a thing I was wondering: can two people from the same team win a race, or is that Not Done?

[PotomacCyclist]

@Arlingtonrider 26727 wrote:

The races are fun to watch live but I miss having commentary.

Update: Now its getting really exciting – 1.6 km to go, in pouring rain. (Vos from the Netherlands, favored to win, came out first.)

The NBC broadcast has commentary.

[PotomacCyclist]

@KelOnWheels 26738 wrote:

So here’s a thing I was wondering: can two people from the same team win a race, or is that Not Done?

I don’t quite understand the question. Only one person can win, unless somehow there was a tie (I think).

[KelOnWheels]

@PotomacCyclist 26749 wrote:

I don’t quite understand the question. Only one person can win, unless somehow there was a tie (I think).

Sorry, that wasn’t very clear, was it? What I actually meant was can/do multiple people from one team go for the podium, or do they just pick one person that’s going to go for it? Like if all of Team GB was in front, could three guys go for the sprint and try to get all the medals?

[Amalitza]

@KelOnWheels 26724 wrote:

Emma Pooley is teeny! I wonder what size bike she rides?

What do you mean, teeny?! :confused: Wikipedia says she is 5’2″. That is a perfectly normal human size! 😎

[KelOnWheels]

@acl 26756 wrote:

What do you mean, teeny?! :confused: Wikipedia says she is 5’2″. That is a perfectly normal human size!

Well she looked very teeny compared to the other riders. Diminutive. Wee. Ickle.

[Terpfan]

The crash highlights are always interesting, particularly in the rain. I feel bad, but it’s like Nascar, some folks watch for the crashes and others for the race.

[DaveK]

@KelOnWheels 26738 wrote:

So here’s a thing I was wondering: can two people from the same team win a race, or is that Not Done?

Usually they wouldn’t race against each other – teams have a designated sprinter if they come to the line with more than one racer together. For example – if the USA came together to a bunch sprint in the Olympics they had said that Taylor Phinney would lead out Tyler Farrar for the win. If it was from the breakaway, Tejay Van Garderen and Timmy Duggan had been working for Taylor Phinney to take the win. If for some reason two teammates in a breakaway come to the line together I imagine they’d work it out together beforehand and probably wouldn’t sprint for it. Alberto Contador gave away a stage to a former teammate in last year’s Giro when they came to the line together because he was already in the race lead and didn’t need yet another stage win.

Shorter – they usually work this out in advance.

[dasgeh]

In lots of races, I’ve noticed that the last guy in the lead out train (the guy before the sprinter) comes in top 5, sometimes even 2 or 3 — basically he leads the sprinter out and is fading, but still up there.

[Author]

Replies