it was great fun watching the men's road race at the london 2012 olympics. brilliant to be able to see some events free and up close (why would anyone buy a ticket for a road race???!!!). we were right at the top of box hill and a member of team gb was next to us with a walkie talkie and a notice board. each time the cyclists came round he held up a board with the time gap to the the lead group. as this gap came down gradually it seemd like the lead group would be caught and obviously the team felt confident as he wrote on the board - leave them out there!
well several things conspired to make this pretty bad advice. firstly because cav is such a great sprinter all the other teams seemed to have decided to just let team gb do all the work - with teams of 5 this was too big an ask and very strange tactics from countries who could have medalled in a bunch sprint (and pretty negative!). secondly another group got away to join the first and made the front group too strong. and thirdly it turns out team gb cyclists are human after all and just didn't have the legs to reel it back in. but it was great to see team gb, cav, brad, huge crowds and even the police in a great move high fiving the crowd from motorbikes as they whizzed by!
clearly it was a disappointing result from gb point of view but cav is still a hero and it was fantastic to see lizzie won silver medal today in the women's road race.
i have added a set of photos in black and white here. it's pretty hard getting photos of cycling in a packed crowd with the cyclists whizzing by but at least you got 9 chances so it was quite fun trying some different approaches and slowing down the shutter speed to create some different effects...
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