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Peter Sagan rainbow jersey.jpgPunctures put paid to Peter Sagan's Rio mountain bike challenge
Peter Sagan’s challenge in the Olympic mountain bike race in Rio came was hit early on by a puncture after the road world champion had made a huge charge early on to move up from last place on the starting grid to get in touch with the leaders including eventual winner Nino Schurter of Switzerland.
It was the first of two flats this afternoon for Sagan, who had decided to try and get a place in the event after concluding earlier this year that the road race course would be too difficult for him following a reconnaissance ride.
The puncture came at the end of the first of seven 4.7km laps, the second coming towards the end of the race and resulting in the Slovak rider abandoning.
Eight years ago five-time world champion Schurter took bronze in Beijing and was runner-up in London four years ago when he was outsprinted to the line by Jaroslav Kulhavy of the Czech Republic, who turned out to be his closest rival today, the pair swapping the lead until riding away with a lap and a half left.
Spain’s Carlos Coloma was third but just as happened at London 2012, French legend Julien Absalon, riding the Olympics for the last time, fell out of contention due to a puncture early on.
Sagan wrote on Facebook afterwards: “This is mountain biking, technical problems can happen and stop me. I started well, but two punctures ruined my race.
“I think I would not be able to stay in front with the best riders today, but maybe I could get a much better position.
“After the first puncture, I managed again to get to 11th place, but after the second I could not,” he added.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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18 comments
"Stop talking balls, make yourself look daft for no reason."
One could say they same to you.
" And have a little respect for the sport"
What you're trying to say is "respect my point of view as gospel" it's nothing to do with "respecting the sport" you just don't like it when people talk back to you, do you?
I bet you're the type who calls people out for fights about stupid shit like football teams and wearing pro team shirts. Just because people don't give a shit about your views and then you feel the need to start slagging them off, calling them stupid, mocking their opinions.
I bet you feel like such a big man.
Behind a keyboard at least.
No what I'm saying is stop talking absolute balls. Everyone knows Sagan raised the profile of the event. Irrational and embarassing to say otherwise and frustrating for everyone else to have to listen to it.
Instead of taking my face saving advice, you're getting worse and have began ranting about me fighting people for football teams?
Pro team shirts? What are you raving about.
Sagan did MTB a favor, and there's no football-hooligan, pro-team shirt, hating terrorist coming after you. Calm down.
He started very well. Back of grid to lead three is impressive. Looked slower over technical sections than Schurter (but so did everyone else) and was looking forward to seeing if he had legs to make up any gaps over course of race. Two punctures says to me something not right. Can't believe he was running tubes, but possible reason. Side wall splits on light weight tyres is another. Either way it was a shame not to see him compete to the end. He's earned the right to be there and is a racer. Reckon quite a few MTBers were relieved he punctured out.
MTB XC races are strange beasts - long laps & 90 minutes soon strings everyone out & keeps pace relatively low. Cross races always seem closer affairs partly due to being shorter in lap lengths and time + quicker bikes. Less MTB technical stuff & some longer climbs is major difference & but the run-ups/hurdles in Cross balances this a bit. My experience of both means Cross feels more like a race. Always racing someone. Can get very lonely in MTB.
Interesting that Stybar and Boom dip toes in Cross water and are always welcomed.
Let's not forget he was a junior world champion at XC. Hardly an usurper...or is that a usurper?
I was reading a thread on singletrack about no support for british XC but in reality does anyone care?
To be brutally honest I put XC in a no man's land. It's doesn't appeal to the MTB side of me as I like to watch people go big or go home as far as that is concerned. I'd watch Crankworx over XC anyday and DH even more so (probably sometime to do with Manon Carpenter...). The atmosphere at some of the DH events seems crackers and I suspect most of that crowd isn't interest in people people more, going slower and not doing anything jaw dropping.
As was mentioned above, XC riders should be welcoming the exposure not bitching about people like Sagan. If they had any sense they'd do an invitational event or something similar.
Hmmm, the same way I feel about Alpine vs. Nordic. But I still have the utmost respect for Nordic athletes and their endurance.
There has been some animosity towards Sagan from the MTB community because of his attitude and the the fact he thought he could just rock up jump back on an MTB and compete at the highest level to get a medal because he didn't have much of a chance in the road race. It almost as if he was putting the sport down as being second rate. The fact he didn't have to qualify in the normal way was also taking the piss.
People then, quite rightly, took the piss out of him when he crashed out of and failed to finish a few races pre olympics.
Having the legs to bash out the miles on the road doesn't make you a good MTB rider , it's a completely different sport. Riders like Absalon and Schurter are first class athletes and nobody's going to jump straight from a road bike to an MTB and win medals.
No-one knows Absalon or Schurter. No-one knows MTB'ers except MTB'ers living that bubble.
A name like Sagan coming in to compete in the sport boosts the profile massively and gives it credibility. MTB community are dense if they're taking the piss out of Sagan. Total bubbleheads.
rember it's quite a fraqmented group, fair bit of **** taking between XC and DH and everything inbetween.
"A name like Sagan coming in to compete in the sport boosts the profile massively and gives it credibility. MTB community are dense if they're taking the piss out of Sagan. Total bubbleheads. "
You're living in your own bubble too it seems.
Ask anyone outside of cycling (and Slovakia) who is Peter Sagan? and most people won't have a clue, so as far as boosting the profile of MTB riding it's not really.
People are taking the piss out of him because he thought he was the big I am and could waltz into a sport that he participated in a decade ago and and get on the podium whereas in reality he got owned.
Road cycling, big crowd. Slovakia, big crowd. MTB, obscure,
Stop talking balls, make yourself look daft for no reason. And have a little respect for the sport.
I watched both men and women MTB events @ Rio. If Sagan hadn't been in the field, I wouldn't have watched either. He certainly raised the profile of MTB to me.
First, the coverage was nothing compared to Redbull TV coverage of the XCO world cup. The commentators don't say stupid things; the camera coverage is better; and so is the atmosphere and crowd -- captured well by Redbull TV.
Second, Schurter chose to use a 29er for this race (he usually uses 27.5).
As for Sagan getting a flat twice, it is not just bad luck in the age of Tubeless tires with sealents -- a lot has to do with your choice of line and technique (flowing over rocks rather than smashing through); not to mention tire pressure (his pit crew's responsiblity to some extent).
The last time I got a double flat was in the age of tubes.
I spent the first four laps looking for Cool Harvey...
Was gutted for him - what an impressive first lap! Not called the Tournimator for nothing, but there were tonnes of punctures. Assuming they were all using tubeless, was this due to rims getting dinged on rocks? Never understood why so many XC racers ran shocks so hard. You could see many weren't getting much travel even on the worst drops o the course. In contrast Schurters looked to be sensibly set up to me. No point carrying round the weight of suspension if it isn't doing much. If the forks are too hard I reckon rim dings are more likely as the tyres are forced to absorb the impacts.
Grant Ferguson did pretty well to finish 17th.
Was a mental incident at the "tech zone" where a Russian (I think) cut up and took out another rider (Canadian?) and totally pretended nothing had just happened
Didn't like ghe commentators much - the lady from down under was downright snooty about Sagan and some other riders. The other knew more about Sagan's skills, but in general the commentary wasn't hugely informative. Big contrast to road and velodrome commentary which I thought was pretty decent..
All technique. Rims are carbon -- so that would take quite the ding. Mostly flats would be tear of the side walls from sharp rocks (got to choose your line right), or a burp (when pressure is too low and tire unseats under hard cornering)
This disappointed me massively. I watched this only to see SuperPeto....gutted mun.
Though a fanastic bike handler, Sagan was clearly rusty, and was no where near a smooth or as light over, the rock gardens etc. which I assume was the cause of the punctures, shame as he seem to have the legs at least for the first lap.