Olympic Men's Road Race banters

[dalava]

It's coming right up this weekend on Friday night (North America).

With a course profile of 234km (~145 miles) and 4865m (~16,000 feet) of climbing, with the brutal last climb up Mikuni Pass (6km at over 10% average gradient), who's the favorite?

It would be interesting to see if the riders just coming out of TdF or the ones who's been training up will have the advantage.

Woods, Van Aert, Roglic, Pogocar, Bardet (is he part of the French team?), Nibali, Velverde, Alaphillipe, who else?

[aaronf]

Here are the current favorites per the bookies:

[jonnyd]

Unfortunately, Alaphillipe won't be there as I love how he heightens pretty much every race he's in. I'm hoping Nibali or Valverde can pull it off, it'd be great to see the elders get one last prize before they're swept away by the youth tidal wave. I'd also love to see Uran win to make up for his 2nd in 2012!

[lavi]

Would be awesome to see Wout snag it. Alaphilippe would be cool too.

Then VDP for mtb to have the cross kings ruling other disciplines.

[kppolich]

I'll take Bardet for this.

[Jaybee]

Not sure who I like for the men’s race yet, but I think it’s crap that the women don’t get to do the two big climbs.

[Old School]

Is there any advice on where I can watch (or preferably record) the Olympics Road Races and MTB?

[tctyres]

I always feel for Greg van Avermaet: he has to wear the gold helmet in the UCI events. It almost seems like punishment. GvA had a hot streak in 2016, and he's consistently been a top ten finisher. He's a marked man, so all his moves are either followed or shut down.

Originally Posted by Old School

Is there any advice on where I can watch (or preferably record) the Olympics Road Races and MTB?

I'm going to guess that tiz cycling is going to have a livestream as well as the replay. For tiz, you'll want an ad blocker.

Eurosport or GCN might be options?

[pasadena]

There is a 15km descent after Mikuni and Kagosaka to the finish.
Whoever is close at the top, and can descend.

Who can stop Pog and Rog? Heavy favorties.
Perfect course for Hirschi, but I don't know what his form is.

Will Vingegaard and Carapaz be there? It could be a replay of the Tour.

If Wout can hold the best up the climbs, he has shot on the descent and rollers to the finish.

Schacmann and Mollema are contenders.

[prototoast]

Velonews says Bernal is racing, but cyclingnews says he's not. I assume velonews is wrong and Bernal hasn't recovered from covid, but otherwise he was going to be my pick.

[pasadena]

Originally Posted by prototoast

Velonews says Bernal is racing, but cyclingnews says he's not. I assume velonews is wrong and Bernal hasn't recovered from covid, but otherwise he was going to be my pick.

Bernal is a phenom but sick/not much racing in the legs... I hope he's in there, i'll be cheering him on

[peanutgallery]

So ....

What's the line on the Olympics actually happening? Way sketchy to me eyes. If the IOC/Japan didn't have trillions tied to the boondoggle....

[prototoast]

Originally Posted by peanutgallery

So ....

What's the line on the Olympics actually happening? Way sketchy to me eyes. If the IOC/Japan didn't have trillions tied to the boondoggle....

Softball has already started!

[GregL]

Originally Posted by Old School

Is there any advice on where I can watch (or preferably record) the Olympics Road Races and MTB?

NBC Sports app.

Greg

[Waldo62]

If a break containing a Columbian climber or two goes, who's gonna chase? Seriously, Slovenia has two alphas plus Mohoric, and it's not like Ineos is gonna ride tempo+ all day.