The course for the Olympic cross country mountain biking will be mostly man-made, and while riders admit they prefer natural tracks with roots and rocks, they’re happy enough to submit this in order for good television coverage which will help get more people involved in the sport.
The exact number of laps is still TBC but races will be around 40-50km long for men and 30-40km for women. It will be fairly artificial, manmade but very varied and technically demanding. An Olympic mountain bike circuit cannot have more than 15 per cent of flat terrain.
No changes were made to the 2016 Olympic cycling programme compared to the cycling at the 2012 Olympics. ^ a b There will be free viewing areas alongside the route. Brazil, as the host country, receives guaranteed quota place in case it would not qualify any qualification places.
To read an example of how a nation like the United States is handling mountain bike Olympic team qualification, read this article. Unlike some Olympic sports, all mountain bike Olympians must reach the age of 19 in the year of the Olympic Games, so any fast youngsters are not eligible for selection.
Olympic mountain biking schedule The course is a 4km lap with 150m of climbing. It hasn't been specified yet how many laps the riders will be completing, but it is expected to be between seven and nine laps.
Under the rules, the 21 highest-ranked nations in the UCI qualification ranking are able to compete in the Olympics, with the top-two teams earning three rider spots, while the third to seventh-place ranked nations get two riders, and the eighth to 21st ranked being allowed just one rider.
The course must be wholly rideable even in difficult weather conditions. o Cross Country Olympic (XCO) ▪ Course distances vary from 4km – 10km depending on the race classification. Class 3 events have no restrictions on course distance.
The course was designed and built by South African expert Nick Flores, who also built the 2012 and 2016 Olympic courses and the Pietermaritzburg (South Africa) World Championship and World Cup course.
What's the average speed dowhilling among competitive riders? The average speed is ≈ 17 mph (27 kph) with peak speeds upwards of 30 mph (48 kph) during downhill mountain bike riding.
When riders pass certain stages/specific points in a race, they blow a whistle. They do this at several races. Also, some race courses that are longer, they allow two riders to be on the track at a time and once one passes a certain checkpoint, the whistle signals the starting gate people to stage the next rider.
Practise the course. ... Make sure to fuel and hydrate before and during the race. ... Don't arrive at the start line cold. ... Get off to a flying start (but remember it's a marathon, not a sprint) ... Pace to perfection. ... Taming technical descents. ... Time your overtake to perfection. ... How to stop people overtaking you.More items...•
The bike is available for purchase by mortals as well, for the jaw-dropping price of $15,000 ($7,000 for the frameset, which includes the fork and shock).
XCO, short for Cross-Country Olympics, is a UCI off-road mountain bike race format held over undulating, mainly dirt-based circuits that riders must complete several times.
Approximately 234 kmCourse informationDifficulty levelElevation differenceTravel distanceApproximately 234 kmGradient
2.5 milesXCO Course info The Izu MTB Course for Tokyo 2020 continues the short, compact race format with a total course distance of 4.0km (2.5 miles) with a sizeable 180 metres (590 feet) climbing per lap. The climbs are short and punchy, favouring certain riders with plenty of technical features packed into the course design.
The 35-year-old defending champion finished fourth after fading late on at the Izu circuit, meaning he failed to continue his remarkable record in the event in which he also won bronze in Beijing and silver in London.
The course was designed by South African course designer and ex-mountain biking pro Nick Floros, who has established himself as one of the best trail builders in the world for XCO in the past few years and also built the track at Hadleigh Park for London 2012.
A descent packed with rocks and bound to make the bikes shake. The segment points towards the downtown area of Rio de Janeiro, which is where it gets its name, and was made by Floros using rocks from a local quarry.
The key to the Olympic cross country mountain biking seems to be man-made but heavily technical features, with an abundance of rock gardens, jumps, pump sections, climbs and descents. It shouldn’t favour any one kind of rider over any other.
The cycling competitions of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro were held at four venues scheduled to host Eighteen events between 6 August and 21 August.
Cycling competitions had been contested in every Summer Olympics programme since the first modern Olympiad in 1896 alongside athletics, artistic gymnastics, fencing and swimming . Since the 1896 contests which featured five track events and an 87 km road race from Athens to Marathon and back, Olympic cycling had gradually evolved ...
The on-the-ground spectators benefit too. For example, spectators standing at the highest point (on Flag Mountain) will be able to see 85 to 90 per cent of the course.
Course designer Nick Floros: “I wanted to come up with a Brazilian flavour and flip-flops are something that everyone in Brazil has. You need to give the course its own character and a bit of local identity, and balance that with something that works well for the riders.”
Ironically one of the best ‘natural’ bits was only unearthed during the construction of an artificial section. The Rio Rocks section is a testing rocky section with a jump off at the end.
There’s another rocky section, this time entirely manmade, called Downtown that’s not quite as steep but looks very awkward to pedal through at speed.
There’s a 1km long climb up a hill called Flag Mountain. It’s not overly steep so it should help the bigger riders stay with the flyweight climbers.
One section of the course is called Rio 40 Degrees – a daunting looking ‘staircase’ of logs pitched at 40 degrees but its name also deliberately refers to the Brazilian weather. But actually August in Brazil is actually more like 25 degrees. Which will be much better for the North American and Northern European competitors.
The Olympic circuit is located in the town of Hadleigh, approximately one hour east of London, overlooking the Thames River Estuary. It is wide open, rolling terrain, and the course is completely man-made.
Cycling discipline features for fifth time in 2012 Olympics. World Cup leader Julie Bresset (BH Suntour) navigates one of the rock gardens on the 2012 Olympic mountain bike course. (Image credit: Tour of Japan) Mountain biking is a relatively young Olympic sport. First included in 1996 in Atlanta, it has also been part of the 2000 Games in Sydney, ...
Group 3. Created with Sketch. A mass start event means grid position is important, but because there are many fewer competitors in an Olympic mountain bike race than in a typical World Cup, the starts are not nearly as chaotic. Fifty male and 30 female racers are expected at the Olympic Games per defined quotas.
Bart Brentjens and Paola Pezzo made history in 1996 by becoming the first winners of the Olympic cross country mountain bike races held at Conyers Park near Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States.
Catharine Pendrel ( Canada) won the women's race in 1:32:04, ahead of Georgia Gould (United States Of America) and Julie Bresset (France). "You appreciate the hardness of the climbs in race conditions," said Pendrel after winning. "I think it races well; it's a hard course, a fast course, I think it's anyone's course.".
Many of the world's fastest cross country racers will line up at Hadleigh Park in Essex County near London for the 2012 Olympic cross country race. The women will race on Saturday, August 11 at 12:30 pm local time while the men will take to the off-road track on Sunday, August 12 at 1:30 pm.
Mountain biking is a relatively young Olympic sport. First included in 1996 in Atlanta, it has also been part of the 2000 Games in Sydney, the 2004 Games in Athens and the 2008 Games in Beijing. Although the ever-evolving sport encompasses a variety of disciplines, only cross country racing is part of the Olympic mountain bike experience.
The men’s MTB event takes place on Monday, July 26 and starts at 7pm Japan time (7am British time, 1am EST in the US), followed by the women’s event on Tuesday, July 27, from 7pm Japan time (7am British time and 1am EST in the US).
Meanwhile Van der Poel, who is always dominant in World Cup short track events, took his first win at Val di Sole back in 2019 and has been focussed on Olympic gold for much of the 2021 season. In the women’s event, Jenny Rissveds (Sweden) is the reigning gold medallist but is not amongst the favourites for victory.
F1’s highest altitude circuit is situated over 2000m above sea level, which is over 1,000m higher than the next highest - Interlagos. However, the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez itself is extremely flat - well, aside for its notorious bumps…
Elevation changes play a big part in making Suzuka a drivers’ favourite, and a quick look at the elevation trace above shows that it has considerably more ups and downs than most circuits. As you can see, the drivers are dropping downhill all the way from the final corners to the circuit’s low point between Turns 1 and 2, making braking particularly tricky. The high point is just out of the challenging Spoon bend (Turn13/14) – a corner that requires a good exit so as not to lose time on the undulating drag to 130R (Turn 15).
Built from scratch in just 486 days using over 12,000 tonnes of stone, the Bahrain International Circuit packs more elevation changes than you might expect into its 5.4km. Its highest point is the hairpin at Turn 4, which makes this an especially good overtaking spot because of the uphill braking zone.
The highest point of the circuit is the right hander at Turn 7 (Malmedy) and from there the drivers go downhill all the way to Turn 15 (Curve Paul Frere). The elevation change of 102.2m is more than the height of London’s Elizabeth Tower, better known as Big Ben.
Abu Dhabi’s spectacular Yas Marina Circuit is largely flat, but it does feature one stand-out ‘peak’ at the sweeping Turn 3, which provides the circuit with its 10.7m elevation change.
There’s a 22m difference between Turn 3 and Turn 11 - with several other rises and falls in between.
Sochi Autodrom, which winds its way around many of the stadia used in the 2014 Olympic Winter Games, is the fourth longest track on the calendar after Spa-Francorchamps, Baku and Silverstone – but the Russian venue is much flatter than all of those locations.
Recently-crowned Tour de France champion Tadej Pogacar headlines a star-studded peloton for Saturday’s road race at the Tokyo Olympics, a tough 145 mile course worthy of a mountain stage of the Grand Tour.
Pogacar, who also won the king-of-the-mountains polka dot jersey on the Tour for the second year running on the back of two impressive mountain pass stage wins, will surely be among the favourites for a podium placing although it is difficult to fathom how much the 22-year-old will have left in the tank after the Tour.