After a year of delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Tokyo Olympics are almost upon us, with cycling events being among the first to take place. A 134-man peloton will tackle a brutal 234-kilometer route for the men’s road race on Saturday, July 24th.
Riders will tackle the most mountainous Olympic road race track in recent history, with five major climbs on the route between Musashinonomori Park and Fuji International Speedway.
The race is the first cycle race in the Olympic Games and takes place just six days after the finish of the Tour de France in Paris. There will be plenty of big names in Japan to contest the tour, including several of the favorites for gold.
130 riders will start on Saturday and conquer 4,865 meters in altitude. The dominant nations – France, Italy, Belgium, Colombia, Spain and the Netherlands – all start with a full line-up of five riders, while non-traditional cycling countries like Burkina Faso, Guatemala and Uzbekistan all start with one rider.
Australia, Denmark, Great Britain, Germany, Norway, Slovenia and Switzerland start with four men, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Kazakhstan, Poland, South Africa and Russia with three men.
Read on for our preview of the race, including an overview of the top competitors who will be battling for gold, silver and bronze, and a look at the challenging circuit.
Whom to watch
Tadej Pogacar drives for Slovenia at the UCI World Championships 2020 (Image credit: Getty Images Sport)
All eyes will be on Slovenia at the start line, with Primož Roglič and Tadej Pogačar starting as co-leaders of the team of four. The two are top favorites for gold as they have swept countless races ahead of them over the past few seasons, including two editions of the Tour de France, Vuelta a España and Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
Defending champion Greg Van Avermaet returns for Belgium, although young prodigy Remco Evenepoel and three-time Tour de France stage winner Wout van Aert will take the lead for the five-man team.
Colombia brings a team of climbers in Esteban Chaves, Rigoberto Urán, Nairo Quintana and Sergio Higuita who are well suited to the terrain. Although Daní Martinez’s COVID-19 positive leaves a five-man team of four, they are all excellent contenders.
The Netherlands are led by Tour stage winner Bauke Mollema and fifth placed Wilco Kelderman, while France brings Guillaume Martin and David Gaudu. The other five-man teams – Italy and Spain – are led by veterans Vincenzo Nibali and Alejandro Valverde.
The UK has four men but its squad is still as strong as any other country. Geraint Thomas and Tao Geoghegan Hart join Simon and Adam Yates. The four-man ROC team includes Pavel Sivakov, Aleksandr Vlasov and Ilnur Zakarin, while Australia and Denmark are led by Richie Porte and Jakob Fuglsang, and Kazakhstan’s three-man team is led by Alexey Lutsenko, who surprisingly finished seventh on the tour.
The distance
The profile of the men’s road race (Image credit: IOC)
The men’s road race map (Image credit: IOC)
The men’s elite road race will run 234 kilometers from the start in Musashinonomori Park to the finish on Fuji International Speedway, overcoming 4,865 meters in altitude. The 75 kilometers that open up bring hilly roads and a long, gradual climb to the base of the first of five major climbs on the route.
First comes the Doshi Road (5.9 km with 5.7 percent), which reaches its climax after 80 kilometers of racing, followed by a 20-kilometer phase on the plateau at an altitude of 1,000 meters and then the first of two short climbs of the Kagosaka Passport.
The peloton will then tackle a 10-kilometer climb before lingering in the valley halfway through the race and then climbing the famous Mount Fuji. The climb
Fuji Sanroku – at 14.3 kilometers with an average of six percent, is the longest of the day.
The ascent takes the peloton – or what’s left of it – over the 140-kilometer mark, then it goes back around 30 kilometers to the north before tackling the toughest climb of the race.
The Mikuni Pass reaches its summit shortly after 200 kilometers of racing, and although it is only 6.5 kilometers long, it is on average 10.6 percent, with a distance of four kilometers on average 12 percent. It would be the decisive climb of the race.
The Kagosaka Pass is the last difficulty of the day, although it is another short climb of 2.2 kilometers before a long descent towards the finish and a short hilly section to the finish on the way to the racetrack.
What to Expect
Riders in their national team kits during the men’s road race on day 1 of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games at Fort Copacabana on August 6, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Image credit: Getty Images Sport)
The race of almost 5,000 meters in altitude over five major climbs in one day should be a grind, with the small teams playing a big role throughout the day.
Belgian favorite Remco Evenepoel compared the route to the Clásica San Sebastián, the tough, hilly one-day race in northern Spain. The Tokyo road race will be of a similar length, but with climbs more than double the Basque Country and wet conditions, it will be an even tougher day in the saddle.
It is interesting that the overall favorites – Pogačar and Roglič – are on a smaller team than many of the major cycling nations and that the two make up half of their Slovenian squad. Make sure Jan Tratnik and Jan Polanc are doing important work for their leaders.
The UK is another team full of leaders so it will be interesting to see who is doing the hard work there and who comes out number one on the road. Otherwise, we can expect the big countries to work with five drivers at the start and one or two clear competitors at the top – Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and France.
The route does not favor long-range attacks with a long drive down the valley to Mount Fuji. Instead, an abrasive race awaits us, in which the drivers fall behind over the course of the kilometers and the peloton is heading for the brutal Mikuni Pass.
The race should be properly sorted out on this ascent, with the fit climbers making the difference on the double-digit inclines and the summit of the ascent being 30 kilometers from the finish.
It wouldn’t be a surprise if a small group – or even a solo rider descends at the top – only has a small climb and a long descent to tackle before the final drive to the finish line. We’ve seen lately that this type of move has been successful – especially in the Tour de France, where Pogačar decimated his opponent at Le Grand-Bornand and several outliers were decided by solo attacks 20-30 kilometers from the finish.
source https://outdoorsportsnews.com/tokyo-olympics-2021-mens-road-race-preview/
No comments:
Post a Comment