Flappy Numbers and Skintight Hoods

For anyone who has their head buried firmly in the sand – or doesn’t have the Queen as their Head of State – The Commonwealth Games are currently underway in Glasgow, and the BBC are apparently daring us to watch anything else with wall to wall coverage of the ‘Friendly Games’ which frankly is brilliant. I love the Commonwealth Games for a few reasons, not least because it usually works out as a massive England v Australia competition but also because it’s the only stage on which we get to see a large number of lesser known states and territories competing in less covered sports like squash or lawn bowls. However, last night I found myself watching Jamaicans running fast on a track, something that I normally couldn’t care less about. Don’t get me wrong I used to love athletics and particularly sprinting, I used to run sub 1 minute times in 400 when I was 13, but for some reason – around the time I realised lots of others were quicker than me – I stopped caring about athletics. Maybe it was the predictability, maybe it was the doping culture that seemed to be ravaging every event other than the middle distance ones, or maybe I just found it boring due to the lack of tactics involved, either way I drifted away from athletics and started to get more engrossed in other sports, not least cycling. I mention cycling because my time following the sport has coincided with massive developments that appear to have passed athletics by.

‘Marginal Gains’ is an expression that has come to be synonymous with modern cycling, particularly around Team GB and Team Sky, but watching the 100m final last night I couldn’t help but notice that this concept hasn’t really shifted over to the Athletics arena with loose jerseys and flappy numbers pinned to the jerseys a prominent feature for almost all runners. I say ‘almost all’ as Adam Gemili, silver medal winner for England, was wearing a skin tight vest – although his number was still flappy. I mentioned this strange situation on Twitter last night and supreme Googler and knower of all good cycling roads in Britain @BigPud immediately found an article that suggests wearing more aerodynamic clothing and ‘trimming or covering the hair’ to reduce wind resistance by just 2% saves close to 0.1s over a 100m race which, in a race that takes 10 seconds, is a hell of a lot. The journal also suggests that doing this properly can result in wind resistance dropping by 6% which would obviously result in an even greater time saving. While I’m not suggesting that the 6% figure is really achievable with current kit practice I would say that Gemili’s skintight vest, extremely short hair, and lack of facial hair or jewelry could easily result in that 2% saving or even more, this would mean that Gemili potentially gained up to 5 places through being more aerodynamic than everyone else in the final.

Further research and googling and whatnot turned up one further article about the effect of streamlining on running. This article focused on the use of bodysuits in running, not unlike the ones that Cathy Freeman used to wear, and came to the conclusion that the bodysuits saved over 1% from the times posted by the test subjects, which means that they could easily knock over 0.1s off a 100m time. The journal does also claim that the current technology in skinsuits makes them unbearable to run in beyond 20-25 minutes and so the marathon runners would be unlikely to see the benefit that the skinsuits could possibly provide them with were it not for their lack of breathability.

This all leads to the question why runners (and in particular sprinters) don’t act on the evidence that they are presented with? In cycling it seems as though every little bit of research that suggests faster times is acted on by the track teams almost immediately while the road teams wait to see if the advantages are likely to successfully move over to the road, and when it comes to road Time Trials it is accepted as part of the nature of the race that we will be subject to discussions about the exact placement of numbers (thanks almost solely to Michael Hutchinson) and the aero position of the rider. While aero position is unlikely to matter in running as an aerodynamic position is not particularly possible, features such as number placement/tautness and covered shoes would presumably provide some advantage (however slight) in the longer distance racing as well as in the sprints. After running through a number of possibilities as to why athletics hasn’t made the move towards marginal gains, including the idea that running (especially marathons and sprints) is too obsessed with times and records rather than beating the people next to you, I came to the conclusion that quite possibly sprinting is more wrapped up in it’s own image and long distance running doesn’t see the benefit of aero when placed against the benefit of staying cool.

It is very unlikely that sprinting would ever accept anyone who placed the importance of their aerodynamic performance over their image as the character side of 100m racing is what creates celebrity, which is what brings in the money, and gets sprinters invited to Diamond League events as the feature names on the ticket. This would mean that until someone breaks a world record or wins Olympic gold using aero techniques the 100m final will always appear to be stuck in the past, whether or not that’s a good thing I’m not sure and only time will ever tell, but it is certainly strange compared to the rest of the modern sporting world.

 

Tom

England’s Kill or Cure

At around 9.30 on Monday night, while Bob Willis was busy reeling off every synonym for stupid that he could remember on The Verdict, Matt Prior sat in his hotel room (ignoring Stuart Broad jabbering about ghosts in the corner) and packed his England bags for possibly the final time, a single tear caught in his beard. Or maybe he didn’t, who knows, but the fact remains that a player who had for so long been the answer to cricket’s version of the ‘left midfield problem’ bowed out after essentially sacrificing his career to save his captain’s. Matt Prior has always struck me as a belligerent bugger, but to continue for two test matches with a torn quad strikes of the same boneheadedness that saw him hook Ishant repeatedly despite the obvious trap set by Dhoni, whether he continued in the role under the fear that retiring would result in Buttler never giving the spot back, or because he views himself as one of Cook’s key allies and wanted to help his friend is beside the point (for the record I think it may have been a combination of the two). Wicketkeepers find themselves in view more than most players in the side, and while Prior has arguably been out form for far less time than Anderson or Cook and has been a far greater asset for England than anyone over the past decade, the nature of his role means that he has less opportunity to recover that form and almost no opportunity for him to leave the side to find form or fitness before a return.

What has really let Prior down is the same issue that will let down England players for a while to come, and could easily be argued to be letting down the entire team right now. For a long time we have heard players complain of too much cricket and for a long time we have heard the scoffs coming from certain areas of the press and the public but that fact remains that if a player has a slight niggle or a minor drop in form they have no time to step away from the test scene to fix it or relax, they simply keep plugging away at the top level, their problems becoming ever more apparent until they are forced out or retire years before they should have done. In recent years the only England player to continue to the age of 35 or beyond is Andrew Strauss, and his career was interrupted by some extreme drops in form in the years before taking the captaincy. Strauss was lucky, he got back into the fold almost exclusively because no one else was capable of filling the role, a belief that is also likely to save Cook this year. Anderson could easily also be said to have been saved by an astonishing drop in form and fitness at the start of his international career, if he had come straight back from his injury into the England fold his career would probably have been over 3 or 4 years ago and he would have been unlikely to ever reach the heights that he has. The only international cricketers in recent years (that I can think of) who have managed to continue their careers well into their 30’s have been those that opted to retire from one form or another and occasionally have asked to be rested from tours that they aren’t interested in, the only tour I can recall that saw England rest big names was the 2009-10 tour to Bangladesh.

A hectic schedule wouldn’t matter if teams employed rotation policies, or selected players based on form and fitness, but England don’t and are unlikely to ever do so. The recall of Stokes (a definite key name for England going forward) despite a lack of form and Jordan having made excellent claims for his spot smacks of a selection committee that (a) doesn’t seem to follow county cricket or (b) is so obsessed with continuity of selection and having a settled XI that they are willing to get their men into the squad despite better wisdom. Now it is certainly unfair at the very least to suggest that England selectors don’t pay attention to county cricket, they may not pay as much as some would like them to, but they definitely pay more than some people who claim to know to know the circuit better than them. Unfortunately this means that the more unsavoury option is the more likely, that cricket is an old boys club and only the right sort of person from ‘the right sort of family’ will be allowed in, while this claim is not necessarily ground-breaking in the absolute slightest (in fact it’s probably the polar opposite of that) it does seem to be true and is leaving England in particular in a bit of a rut.

The selection policy that England (and most of the cricketing world) seem to be stuck on is the shockingly incorrect idea that there are 11 players in a country that are better than everyone else and can conveniently be used in the roles required and will continue to be the best 11 for the foreseeable future, which quite frankly bollocks. I’ll admit I am oversimplifying slightly and that the mantra of ‘Horses for courses’ is often rolled out by a Pattinsonesque selection (or simply a Pattinson as I’ve taken to calling them), but these are often rubbish selections born of pure desperation and so for the purposes of this can be easily ignored. In fact, ignoring selections born of injury (and the return from injury) or retirement England have only made long term changes in one position in the past two years: Opening batsman. Strauss -> Compton -> Root -> Carberry -> Robson, admittedly Carberry’s selection involved Bairstow getting the boot but one could argue that Bairstow’s chronic lack of ability is an injury in itself. This model simply won’t last (and neither will the players) if the ECB intend to continue with their rammed 10 month season schedules, they will have to choose between heavy and lucrative schedules or regularity of selection.

Selection regularity is something we are repeatedly told is a good thing in test cricket and I am still to hear a convincing argument why. Cricket is essentially an individual sport masquerading as a team sport and suggesting that you need the same settled 11 each week as you might in other sports is nonsense, the only reason in favour of a settled eleven is that without one the ECB are wasting money on central contracts, which isn’t much of a big issue for anyone other than the businessmen controlling the sport. If anything International cricket is rapidly heading back towards the era of works teams with only players employed by the national boards getting a look in until one of them gets injured or gives up, this actually works on two levels considering that Cricket Australia, the ECB, and the BCCI are now run more as businesses than governing bodies.

If England want to make money they’ll probably be OK going on the way they are (so long as someone finds a bit of form in the next couple of years), but if they want a return to the top spot they will need to do something radical and find a way of keeping all their players at the top level and in good fitness for as long as possible. As far as I can tell there are two ways of doing this, (1) give Lance Armstrong a call and ask for some pointers… which they really shouldn’t do, or (2) develop an intelligent rotation policy, find 3 good openers, about 5 good batsmen, a couple of keepers, one or two spinners and 5 seam bowlers and rotate them depending on form, fitness, and whatever other factor they feel like. This is how things operate in most sports around the world and seems rather astonishing that it is not a feature of cricket, and so long as these players were allowed to go back to county cricket during games they weren’t playing then the counties would probably be onside. The players would get much more rest and opportunity to find form, but there would also be the guaranteed motivation to perform as there would always be a player in the wings to take your spot.

To make it simpler I can name a strong 17 man squad using predominantly players on the England radar right now and I’m sure many others could find their own preferences to take spots in the side:

Cook (c), Robson, Compton, Ballance, Ali, Root, Bell, Taylor, Buttler (+), Read (+), Panesar, Kerrigan, Anderson, Broad, Stokes, Jordan, Woakes

I’ll admit that a system such as this isn’t foolproof and with a poor coach and a meek captain would result in the same situation we have now but with slightly more frustrated bystanders but if used properly it would bring through young players in a sensible manner, would provide more senior players with the rest their bodies need and would never really weaken the team, as all of the cover players would be prepared to a high level and have been playing test cricket simply as a matter of course. Of course the ECB will never take on such a drastic option as this, even if it is their best chance of saving players careers and the future of English cricket, because (as has been proved by KPgate) they are all idiots.

Tom

Le Tour 2014 preview

The teams have been presented, the road artists have perfected their designs, French villages have settled on what to make out of all their hay bales, and the people of Yorkshire have stopped celebrating and started complaining about road closures, it can all only mean one thing: the toughest sporting event in the world is upon us, it’s Tour de France time. I’ll try to give you my personal rundown on those I believe are in with a shot at a GC challenge, those who will be chasing the polka dot and green jerseys, and the stages where all the fun should happen, plus some of the lesser known riders who might be capable of lighting up the biggest stage of all.

GC Challangers

2013 was as close to a one man show as many thought it would be possible for us to get, with the Sky robots controlling every day in the saddle and Chris Froome’s destructive turn of pace on the climbs and steady perfection in the time trials there was only ever going to be one winner, but it is unlikely that Brailsford’s charges will find this year anywhere near as easy. Froome hasn’t had the easiest of years in 2014 and, with his nemesis Wiggins arguably having the better form for most of the season, he will need to win – or at least be beaten by sheer brilliance – to keep the wolves from the door. His big rival this July comes in the form of Alberto Contador who has, in complete contrast, been absolutely imperious this season, if anything looking even stronger and faster than he did before his ban, his team have all improved massively on last year as well and have been more than capable of controlling races throughout this season, far more capable in fact than Sky have proved to be. If Contador starts as the early favourite, with Froome close behind, then Movistar’s Alejandro Valverde is likely the next in line to the throne, after the catastrophic 13th stage in 2013 that saw him lose 10 minutes to the leaders after breaking a wheel he is once again performing well, and without the distraction of Quintana on the Movistar squad he will be in no doubt of his position as team leader. Valverde though will need to build sizeable gaps over the hills to counteract Froome and Contador in the time trial where he is likely to lose decent chunks of time, although fortunately for him there is only one TT this year and as such is faced with his best chance of a podium, if not a yellow jersey, for many a year. Last year’s third placed Katusha rider Rodriguez will probably in the mix once more, with a decent (if unspectacular) team around him and more than enough climbing ability to take time from the more successful time trial riders. Nibali will also be expected to mount a strong challenge, especially with his recent improvements as a TT rider and his outright focus on the tour this year. Jurgen van den Broeck will as ever be considered a threat in the mountains but will need his Tour de France fortunes to change drastically along with an upswing in form to really challenge for major honours. Andy Schleck is no stranger to the top end of the Tour’s leaderboard but will be surprising everyone if he finishes the race never mind finishes it in a competitive position. This year’s American challenge is far stronger than it has been in quite a while, with BMC being led by Tejay van Garderen – no longer competing for the white jersey – and Garmin Sharp have the ever improving Andrew Talansky (also no longer competing for the white jersey) who has had a fantastic 2014 including a Critérium du Dauphiné win and a top ten at the the Volta a Catalunya, both of whom will be looking to make steady improvements on their previous top tens at the tour.

King of the Mountains

Always hell to predict and usually the most exciting classification at the tour the King of the Mountains competition in 2014 is likely to be no different. The bookies fancy Contador or Froome to take Polka Dot jersey home with them, and the GC contenders will be playing a part once again due to the hilly nature of this year’s tour but the chances are that they will be too busy marking each other to pick up enough points to actually be in possession of the jersey come Paris. Pierre Rolland will presumably make a play to ride through France in head to toe Polka Dots as his wont however his habit of competing at the business end of the GC means he may be marked out of contention by other guys competing for the lower places in the top 10. Swiss outfit IAM cycling have more than enough climbers and breakaway specialists in their ranks to mount a challenge at this classification, and in Frank and Chavanel they have two riders who are not only likely to return some stages but also have a real shot of taking some fancy clothing home with them. BMC’s Atapuma is another with strong potential for taking home the title if he is allowed to ride for himself enough of the time and not get forced into working solely for the good of Tejay. Bretagne-Séché Environnement have one or two riders in Brice Feillu and Anthony Delaplace who may also be able to spring a surprise and claim the King of the Mountains jersey for their young French squad, although if I’m honest the only reason I included them was because that team name just sounds brilliant. France’s best shot at the jersey will probably come from the Ag2r La Mondiale squad who will most likely be working for Romain Bardet (the current great French hope) in the White jersey stakes but also have the personnel to launch devastating attacks in the mountains, Bardet himself is probably the best placed of the team to challenge but Riblon and Peraud will also be names to look out for.

Points

The points competition is a little more simple to predict: Sagan will win it. But if by some act of God or sheer dumb luck Sagan doesn’t make it to Paris to collect his rightful jersey then Kittel, Greipel, and Cavendish will likely be trading stage wins throughout Northern France with the hope of catching the Slovakian. Kittel is probably the favourite of the three, with a sprint train that has been firing on all cylinders for the best part of two years now. Cavendish’s train at OPQS has been misfiring all season, infallible when they work and appalling when they don’t, he will be bolstered by the addition of his right hand man at HTC, Mark Renshaw, to the squad and if the two of them can get going then it is unlikely anyone else will even get close. Greipel still goes about things the old ways, with little or no train to speak of and only Greg Henderson working as a regular lieutenant (the rest all busy with VdB), he has to jump between wheels and use his raw power to take stage wins, expect him to steal a couple from under Kittel and Cav’d noses and if VdB’s luck falls apart again expect his train to immediately out muscle the other two.

The Big Stages

Most of a tour seems to revolve around OPQS controlling a race on the flat with the breakaway caught at about 15km to go, and then Sky controlling it uphill with the breakaway free to do as they damn well please, but some stages, just some, ought to result in fireworks from start to finish, these are where I think those stages might fall.

Stage 2: York-Sheffield

It isn’t often that a stage this early into the tour can be said to be key for the GC but this one just might be, lots of narrow roads and punishingly steep climbs with one on Jenkins Road right before the finish line means that the Ardennes classics riders like Rodriguez may be able to steal a march on Froome, Contador, and Valverde. This stage is also likely to give Sagan an early leg up on the other Green jersey contenders as none of them will be expected to get over the Yorkshire climbs.

Stage 5: Ypres-Arenberg Porte du Hainaut

This will be mayhem. Absolute mayhem. GC riders and climbers trying to get through the Carrefour de l’Arbre without breaking in half is going to be interesting and will probably result in the classics boys who took time in Sheffield being able to extend their control over the GC, if anything this is where Belkin should come to the fore and take a yellow jersey that they might well hold on to for quite a while before the mountains get just a bit too much.

Stage 10: Mulhouse-La Planche des Belles Filles

Four category one climbs finishing up the 20% ramp on Planche des Belles Filles will presumably result in at least a couple of jerseys changing hands. Expect the big guys to start attacking each other, if only to test the waters, and a little bit of battling between the early front runners in the mountains classification. Not only is this stage the first real test but it falls on Bastille Day and is followed by the first rest day of the tour which means that the peloton will have a tough job keeping an eye on all of the kamikaze French attacking in search of any nationalistic recognition on the biggest French holiday of all.

Stage 14: Grenoble-Risoul

Stage 13 climbing the HC to Chamrousse is likely to result in a lot of attacking amongst the favourites but on stage 14 is where the effect of those attacks will become apparent. Three absolutely monstrous climbs, including the highest peak of this year’s tour (the Col d’Izoard), means that anyone who slightly overdid it the previous day will quickly be found out and those who remembered that these climbs were coming and left a bit in reserve will be able to quickly remake time and potentially push on past their rivals. Today will also be key for the mountains classification, the number of points available is staggering and if a favourite gets in the early break they may be able to have the jersey all but wrapped up when they get onto the team bus for a well earned sit down.

Stage 18: Pau-Hautacam

The names of the start and finish lines of this stage should give some idea of how immense this stage will be. This is the last chance for most of the climbing GC guys to gain time before the time trial two days later and as such there will be attacks all over the shop from every rider with legs that still work, the fact that in the middle of this stage is the menacing Col du Tourmalet means that those legs will not be working particularly well for anyone and the Hautacam may well become nothing more than a war of attrition as the numbers in the front group steadily dwindle.

Stage 21: Evry-Paris

Always fun and always a big sprint, the green jersey will probably be firmly on Sagan’s shoulders by now but that doesn’t mean that the sprinters won’t be going all out to try and take out a win on the most famous finish line in cycling. It’s also reasonably expected that there will be a last hurrah attack from the old boys Voigt and Horner along the gutters of the Champs-Élysées.

Surprise riders

I’m not sure any of these riders will actually produce anything on this tour but I suspect that they will be trying to throw themselves into breakaways and give us all some unexpected excitement on even the dullest of stages.

Svein Tuft and Simon Yates at Orica will be expected to work for Simon Gerrans when need be, but are also more than capable of attacking and providing competition for the strongest of riders in the breakaways. On top of that they can both climb with the big boys and have the potential of surprising them to steal a few stages and maybe even a spot in the top 10.

Gregory Rast is having a brilliant season at Trek and could well make a charge at GC if given the freedom that a Schleck failure will provide him with. Over at Belkin, Bauke Mollema and Sep Vanmarcke will be eyeing up the chance of taking a yellow jersey on the cobbles and attempting to hold onto it into the mountains, which they stand a real chance of doing if they can replicate their early season form.

Lampre-Merida and FDJ have gone all out for stages this year (although Thibaut Pinot will soon be a genuine GC contender) and have wonderful attacking riders all over their rosters. Rui Costa, as world champion, will obviously be Lampre’s big hope for a stage win but Nelson Oliveira recently took the Portugese National Championships and will be looking to build on his recent success. FDJ will look to Roy and Pinot to take out breakaways and will have newly crowned French National Champion DéMare fighting in the sprints, so they will be regularly competing for stage victories on all kinds of stages throughout the month keeping all of France happy(ish) for the course of the race.

 

Tom