British track cyclists have thus far dominated the velodrome at the Rio Olympics. They have 11 medals, while no other country has more than two. The women’s sprint gold medal was one of the few that got away, as Germany’s Kristina Vogel defeated Rebecca James this afternoon to take the win.
Mountain biking at the Rio Olympics doesn’t start until this Saturday, but the event is already running into problems. Specifically, the course is on fire.
Track cycling crashes are ugly. Riders can reach over 40 MPH on their sprints, and falling at that speed can often leave you with skin burns, which half of the Australian team suffered when they crashed a week ago.
Lance Armstrong was a very good cyclist, perhaps the best the greatest who ever lived. Anyone who says otherwise is ignoring history.
There has been a great deal of controversy this year about cyclists using illegal, hidden electric motors in their bicycles, a practice goofily known as “moto-doping.” Currently, any cyclist found to be doing this is considered cheating, because moto-doping is very much against the rules of Union Cycliste…
The Olympic road races were full of nasty crashes, including Samad Pourseyedi’s header into a concrete wall and Annemiek Van Vleuten’s head-over-heels tumble at speed. Thankfully, the Olympics are done with the treacherous descent of the Vista Chinesa. However, that doesn’t mean that there won’t be any more bike…
Dutch Olympic cyclist Annemiek van Vleuten is recuperating in intensive care after an horrific crash on the cycling track during the women’s road race event at the 2016 Rio Olympics. The rider suffered a heavy concussion and three small fractures in her lumbar spine, although she was apparently conscious and able to…
Yesterday’s Olympic men’s road race was an incredible, arduous lungbuster of a race that ended with about as happy of an ending as you could hope for. This afternoon’s women’s road race was just the opposite.
Dutch rider Annemiek Van Vleuten crashed on the descent with less than seven miles remaining in the 85-mile road race. While the course was different from the one we illustrated as being difficult-to-dangerous, much of it did follow the men’s course.
In 1971, the greatest cyclist of all time, Eddy Merckx, put together the greatest season of all time. He won the Tour de France, the world championships, three monuments, and took 45 percent of the races he started. That figure is incredible, and nobody ever has or ever will touch it, but he still lost more than he…
Today’s Olympics cycling road race has proven to be a danger, both due to physics and to fans chasing after the riders, screaming. That can’t be healthy for anyone, but at least he was clothed.
Where most tough bike races are defined by one particularly cruel feature (for example, the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix), the Olympics road race course has everything. The course is packed with cobbles, crosswinds, technical descents, and Grand Tour-length climbs. This is not to mention that Olympic teams are half the…
The 2016 Tour de France ended similarly to the last four Tours: the eventual champion grabbed the yellow jersey early and smashed the field for the rest of the race, with the help of their dominant team. The yellow jersey hasn’t changed hands in the last week of the race since 2011, and—save Vincenzo Nibali’s odd,…
The last summit finish of the 2016 Tour de France came and went, with the general classification race shaken up by a series of crashes more than anything. Chris Froome’s overall lead looked unassailable even before he won yesterday’s time trial, but the rest of the top ten has been a jumbled mess. This morning’s stage…
The hubris and planet-sized egos of lunatic sports owners is a core Deadspin beat, from Joe Lacob’s horniness for the Larry O’Brien trophy, to Stan Kroenke’s dead raccoon hair, to Dan Gilbert’s simpering evil. When the Panthers’ owner gets a dang statue of himself with two actual panthers built out front of his…
The Republican National Convention has been marked by weirdo demonstrators, Alex Jones squawking, desperate brand exercises, and hundreds of bike cops. Meanwhile, RNC-attending sources tell Deadspin that the city is overrun with bike-mounted officers who ride like herbs.
Chris Froome appeared to have the Tour de France by the balls through most of this afternoon’s mountain stage up to Mount Ventoux, parrying away Nairo Quintana’s first attack and dropping everyone who posed a threat to his Tour on the final climb. While distancing Quintana and the rest of the general classification…
Highlights are hard to come by at the Tour de France. Cameramen are always on the lookout for weird little moments, like Taylor Phinney playing one of those weird shell helmets like a drum or Alejandro Valverde reading the newspaper. However, sprint genius Mark Cavendish stopping for a pee break isn’t exactly the best…
Heading into the first rest day of the Tour de France, Chris Froome holds the yellow jersey by a slim margin. Nairo Quintana, Adam Yates, and a few other plucky challengers are right there with him, but Froome and Team Sky have done what they do every year: wring the life out of every vaguely hilly stage until…
Sprinters don’t tend to have long peaks in cycling. For every Erik Zabel or Robbie McEwen who dominates the Tour de France for half a decade, you have bushels of Thor Hushovds and Alessandro Petacchis—who win one points competition and a decent amount of stages, but never hold onto the crown of “World’s Best Sprinter”…
