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News, commentary and humor about bicycling and other topics of the day

 

Wisconsin lends a hand to Chicago's Olympic bid

The city of Chicago is pulling out the stops in its bid to get the 2016 Summer Olympics. Luminaries such as Oprah Winfrey and Hillary Rodham Clinton are assisting Mayor Richard Daley with the technical presentation to the International Olympic Committee.

But that doesn't support for the Chicago bid is stopping at the Illinois state line. Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle's among the supporters for the Chicago. Should Chicago get the bid, Madison, Wis., would be the host city for most of the cycling events.

"Frankly, they needed to find some hills," Doyle said on the NBC Chicago Web site. "It is my understanding from the people who designed this course, that it would be one of the most challenging, if not the most challenging course, in the history of the Olympics."

Chicago is known for lots of things -- everything from a world-class art museum to a major-league baseball team that hasn't won the World Series since 1908 -- but it's not known for its hills.

Yes, Illinois has some hilly areas, the northwestern corner of the state near Galena and deep Southern Illinois in Shawnee National Forest. Both areas, however, would be hard-pressed to be handle an Olympic competition and the huge crowds.

That's where Wisconsin fits in. Wisconsin definitely has the hills, and Madison is better equipped to handle large crowds than any other community in hilly sections of Wisconsin and Illinois.

In making his case for Wisconsin's ability to handle the cycling competition, Doyle cited Wisconsin's bike trails, high percentage of bicycle riders and the major bike manufacturers headquartered in the state, including Trek Bicycle Corp.

The Associated Press also reported that Doyle assured the IOC that the Madison area would be easily reachable from Chicago. He said a high-speed rail system that links Chicago to Milwaukee to Madison and the Twin Cities should be operating by 2016.

According to AP, the road race would start in Madison and finish at Blue Mound State Park, about 25 miles west of the city. The mountain bike course would be at Tyrol Basin, a popular ski and snowboard destination near the city of Mount Horeb west of Madison. The time trials would be in Madison.

Track races would be conducted at a permanent velodrome to be constructed in Chicago's Douglas Park, while BMX racing would take place at a temporary venue at Douglas Park. Douglas Park is in the city's west side, bordered by Roosevelt Road, California Avenue, 19th Street and Albany Avenue. Ogden Avenue -- once part of historic Route 66 -- goes through the park.

By the way, St. Louis is part of Chicago's proposal, but not for cycling. Preliminary Olympic soccer matches would be held at the Edward Jones Dome if Chicago gets the bid.

Labels: Chicago, Illinois, Olympics, Wisconsin

Roger 0 comments links to this post 12:49 AM

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

East St. Louis native Dawn Harper wins gold medal

Yes, I know Dawn Harper isn't a cyclist, but she's a hometown hero!

Harper, who grew up in East St. Louis and was a track star at East St. Louis High School and UCLA, was the surprise gold-medal winner in the 100 women's hurdles. Harper won the event with a personal best time of 12.54 seconds, a tenth of a second ahead of silver medalist Sally McLellan of Australia.

American Lolo Jones was the favorite to win the event, but she clipped a hurdle, opening the door for her teammate. Teammate Damu Cherry, who defeated Harper in a semifinal Monday, finished fourth in the finals. Jones finished seventh.

Not surprisingly, Harper has close ties to another East St. Louis Olympic champion, Jackie Joyner-Kersee. Harper's coach is JJK's husband, Bob Kersee.

Harper barely made it to the Beijing Olympics. Harper qualified for Beijing by placing third in the 100m with a time of 12.62 at Olympic Trials in Eugene. She crossed just .007 seconds in front of Nichole Denby for the final spot in the event.

"I honestly did not know if I finished third or not," Harper told the Belleville News-Democrat after the trials. "I was able to get out of the (starting) blocks well, but then I hit the seventh and eighth hurdles and I saw my dream maybe ending. I just leaned at the finish line as far as I could."

Labels: Illinois, Olympics

Roger 0 comments links to this post 9:50 AM

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Kristin Armstrong wins gold medal

Veteran American cyclist Kristin Armstrong became only the second American woman to win a gold medal in an Olympic road racing event by winning the women's time trial today.

Kristin Armstrong -- no relation to 7-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong and not to confused with Lance Armstrong's ex-wife of the same name -- won the 14.6-mile time trial in 34 minutes, 51.72 seconds — 24.29 seconds better than Emma Pooley of Great Britain. Switzerland's Karin Thuerig was third, almost a minute behind the time set by Armstrong. American Christine Thorburn finished fifth.

In fourth place was France's Jeannie Longo-Ciprelli, who is 49 years ago. I personally remember seeing Longo win the women's road race in the 1986 World Championhips in Colorado Springs, Colo. Somewhere hidden in my slide archive, I have a picture of Longo being interviewed after her victory. It truly is amazing how an athlete can stay at the top of her game for so long.

Armstrong, who turned 35 on Monday, cried tears of happiness as "The Star-Spangled Banner" played during the awards ceremony. The only other American woman to have won a gold medal in a road event is Connie Carpenter, who won the inaugural women's road race in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

UPDATE: Later today, American Levi Leipheimer took the bronze medal in the men's time trial. Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland won the gold by riding the 47.3-kilometer circuit in 1 hour, 2 minute, 11.43 seconds. Gustav Larsson of Sweden was 33.36 seconds behind Cancellara, while Leipheimer was 1:09.68 behind. American David Zabriskie was 12th, more than 3 minutes behind Cancellara

Labels: cycling, Olympics, racing

Roger 0 comments links to this post 12:20 AM

Saturday, August 09, 2008

Olympic Men's Road Race medalists

Stop reading this post if you want to wait until you see NBC's coverage later this morning to find out the medalists in the Men's Road Race.

Gold: Samuel Sanchez (Spain), 6 hours, 23 minutes, 49 seconds
Silver: David Rebellin (Italy), same time
Bronze: Fabian Cancellara (Switzerland), same time.

Levi Leipheimer was the top American finisher in 11th place, 20 seconds behind Sanchez. Christian Vande Velde finished in 19th, 30 seconds behind Sanchez.

That's all from here. I really need to get to sleep, and I really don't know how many more nights I can spend watching online coverage during this Olympiad.

Labels: cycling, Olympics, racing

Roger 0 comments links to this post 4:28 AM

Online coverage of Olympic men's road race: A quick review

Some quick observations about the online coverage of the Olympic men's cycling race:

• If you haven't already done so, the first time you click on the video for Olympic coverage, you will have to download Microsoft Silverlight. If you run a PC on XP or Vista, you should have no problems. If you run a Mac, you'll be OK if you have an Intel processor. If you have any other kind of Mac, forget it. Although I run OS X at work, my G5 does not have an Intel processor, so I couldn't watch the race.
• I am impressed with the video quality -- the sharpness is wonderful compared to some other streaming video pictures I've seen, and the color saturation is superb for online video.
• You will be watching a feed with no audio commentary; you'll have to wait until the race is broadcast on NBC or its sister networks to hear it. NBC's commentary team consists of Pat Parnell, play-by-play; Craig Hummer, play-by-play; Kenan Harkin, analyst; Paul Sherwin, analyst; and Marty Snider, reporter.
• The Live Commentary feature is similar to commentary features seen on other online video sites such as that for the Tour of California. Be sure to click the "More" tab from time to time. The Live Commentary did not report that American David Zabriskie has dropped out halfway through the race, but a story under the "More" tab did.
  
• The Play-by-Play feature was broken during the men's road race. Hopefully, it can be fixed before future races.

Have fun watching Olympic cycling!

Labels: cycling, Olympics, racing, technology, television

Roger 0 comments links to this post 1:47 AM

Friday, August 08, 2008

Olympic cycling TV times

Here's the list of TV coverage planned by NBC and its sister stations for the St. Louis area (all times Central Time Zone). You also may want to check NBCOlympics.com for your community because the coverage times may vary. In most cases, the cycling coverage will be included among coverage of other sports, and times are subject to change:

Saturday, Aug. 9
9:00-9:30 a.m, 11:30 a.m.-noon, 1:30-2:30 p.m.: Men's road race (NBC)

Sunday, Aug. 10
Noon-5 p.m.: Women's road race (NBC)

Wednesday, Aug. 13
4-10 a.m.: Men's time trial (MSNBC)
7-9 p.m.: Women's time trila (NBC)

Friday, Aug. 15
9-11 a.m.: Track events (USA)

Saturday, Aug. 16
1 a.m.-1 p.m.: Track events (USA)
11 a.m.-noon: Men's individual pursuit (NBC)

Sunday, Aug. 17
1 a.m.-1 p.m.: Track events (USA)
11 a.m.-1 p.m.: Women's individual pursuit (NBC)

Monday, Aug. 18
4-11 a.m.: Men's team pursuit final (MSNBC)

Tuesday, Aug. 19
1-7 a.m.: Track events (USA)
9-11 p.m., 11:30 p.m.-1 a.m.: Men's BMX (NBC)

Wednesday, Aug. 20
7-10 p.m.: Men's and Women's BMX (NBC)

Friday, Aug. 22
4-9:30 a.m.: Women's mountain bike (MSNBC)

Saturday, Aug. 23
11:30 p.m.-4 a.m.: Men's mountain bike(NBC)

Labels: cycling, Olympics, racing, television

Roger 0 comments links to this post 7:31 PM

Thursday, August 07, 2008

Olympic cycling online

My blogging buddies on the West Coast, Cyclelicious and BikingBis, already have posted times to watch Olympic cycling online at NBCOlympics.com in the Pacific Time Zone. I'm doing the same for those of us who live in the Central Time Zone:

• Friday, Aug. 8: Men's Road Race, 10 p.m.-4:30 a.m. Saturday (UPDATED AUG. 8)
  
• Sunday, Aug. 10: Women's Road Race, 1:30-4 a.m.
• Tuesday, Aug. 12: Women's Time Trial, 10:30 p.m.-12:05 a.m.
• Wednesday, Aug. 13: Men's Time Trial, 12:30-4:10 a.m.
• Friday, Aug. 15: Men's and women's track individual pursuit; men's team sprint, 3:30-6 a.m.
• Saturday, Aug. 16: Women's individual pursuit first round; men's kerin, points race, and 4000m individual pursuit finals, 3:30-6:45 a.m.
• Saturday, Aug. 16: Men's team pursuit; men's and women's sprint qualifying rounds, 9-10:45 p.m.
• Sunday, Aug. 17: Women's 3000m individual pursuit final; men's & women's sprint round of 16 and round of 8, 3:30-5:45 a.m.
• Monday, Aug. 18: Women's points race; men's and women's sprint quarterfinals, 3:30-6 a.m.
• Tuesday, Aug. 19: Men's madison; men's and women's sprint classifications, semifinals and finals, 3:30-6:50 a.m.
• Friday, Aug. 22: Women's Mountain Bike Race, 2-4:15 a.m.
• Saturday, Aug. 23: Men's Mountain Bike Race: 2-4:45 a.m.

Even someone with weird work hours like me is going to be hard-pressed to stay up for the online coverage, so I will post those in the next day or two. Meanwhile, you can find listings at NBCOlympics.com.

Labels: cycling, Olympics, racing

Roger 1 comments links to this post 1:54 PM