The first race is over. www.nbcolympics.com has this cool feature where you can tune in and watch the events live as they are happening. You usually don’t get any commentary, but that makes it feel more like you are actually there.

I watched the Men’s Cycling Road Race from about 9:00 p.m. last night (Mountain Time) until about 1 a.m. when I got too tired to continue. The race is about 150 miles long and seven laps. It was fascinating watching first the City of Beijing and then the Chinese countryside go by. We saw the Great Wall and many highways and mountains in the area. It was just like being there.

For the first couple hours, China and Bolivia were ahead. They were so far ahead that you couldn’t even see the rest of the pack (called the peleton). I thought sure I was seeing the gold and silver medal winners, but by the time I went to bed, neither one could be seen. The first place rider changed every couple minutes and it was anybody’s race.

In case you don’t know, here are the three winners:

Gold - Samuel Sanchez (Spain)
Silver - Davide Rebellin (Italy)
Bronze - Fabian Cancellara (Switzerland)

There were five men on the American team and the highest ranking one was Levi Leipheimer who came in number 11. David Zabriske was showing up on all the favorites lists before the race, but he had to drop about about half way through the 150 mile race. I think it might have had something to do with his health. He had broken his back last year and missed the Tour de France. I haven’t heard anything definite on it, but that would explain why he couldn’t finish.

What amazes me the most about a race like this, aside from just watching these athletes ride for 6 and a half hours (something I couldn’t do if my life depended on it), was that among the top eleven finishers, there was 20 seconds difference. Leipheimer who came in 11th, was 20 seconds behind the leader. The next American, Christian Vande Velde who came in 18th, was 30 second behind the leader. Imagine after 6 and a half hours and 150 grueling miles in the heat and bad air, only 30 seconds separated the top 18 riders.

Whenever we have a job to do, it’s not over until it’s over. We can struggle day by day in doing a task, but it comes down to the final seconds as to who the winner is. Winston Churchill said it best “Never give Up, never give up, never give up”.

Tomorrow, we have the ladies road race.

James Hoag

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 9th, 2008 at 6:18 pm and is filed under Olympics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.