Olympics - Kristin Armstrong Wins Gold Metal
All right!! Let’s hear it for Kristine Armstrong. Last night (yesterday in Beijing), she took home the first gold metal in cycling in the Individual Time Trials for women. Fortunately, I was able to stay up and watch the event for the women. The men (who I will cover in a minute), was in the middle of the night and sleep got in the way of me seeing that one live. I had to watch it on tape.
The women’s time trials started Tuesday night (Mountain time) and involved about 20 riders. The riders were released individually one at a time about 90 apart. The riders don’t compete against each other as much as they compete against the clock. Only two were American’s; Anderson and Christine Thorburn. The route was 14.6 miles and unlike the road race from this weekend, the riders started out with a punch and gave it their all for the entire length of the ride. Armstrong came in first with a time of 34 min, 51.72 seconds. Thorburn came in fifth. I was particularly impressed that Armstrong “lapped” the rider that left right before her. I mean she actually caught the rider that had left 90 seconds before her and passed her. I saw no other rider do that.
The top three were:
Gold - Kristine Armstrong (United States)
Silver - Emma Pooley (Great Britain)
Bronze - Karin Thurig (Switzerland)
I liked Armstrong’s comment at the end of the race: “It’s the most amazing day of my life. I’ve been working for this for the last eight years.” Remember Scrooge McDuck from the comic books? Everytime he got a new gold coin, he would bite it to see if it was legitimate. I had to laugh at Kristin Amrstrong biting her Gold Metal. Maybe she wanted to see if it was really real.
Later last night (or early this morning), the men had their individual time trials. A longer race at 29.4 miles, it took the guys a little over an hour to ride the course. It was the same kind of race the women did, only twice as long. There were about 40 riders, but only two Americans; Levi Leipheimer and David Zabriskie. Leipheimer, who got the bronze metal looked a little older than the norm so I looked him up. He’ll be 35 years old in October. So who says you have to be young to win a metal in the Olympics. Zabriskie came in at number 12.
The top three men were:
Gold - Fabian Cancellara (Switzerland)
Silver - Gustav Larsson (Sweden)
Bronze - Levi Leipheimer (United States)
So, our metal count goes up by two provided by the cyclists. But let’s not forget the other people who participate in these events. The news and the Olympic web sites tend to concentrate on the winners and we seldom talk about the people who try but come up short. I was especially touched by a comment that was made by Cadel Evans from Australia. he came in fifth missing a metal by less than a minute. “No metal, all that hard work,” Evans said sadly.
I say hurrah for all the participants. They are all winners in my book, weather they took home a metal or not.
James Hoag