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No, the rules are pretty simple. The one who manages to first cross the finish line wins. Everybody knows the rules. The problem is it is not a very simple spo

No, the rules are pretty simple. The one who manages to first cross the finish line wins. Everybody knows the rules. The problem is it is not a very simple sport and there is some game theory involved. Riding as fast as possible is not the best strategy, actually it is pretty poor one. The better strategy comes from understanding you don't need to win by a lot, winning by 1s is the same as winning by 10 minutes. Also riding alone or at the front costs a lot more effort than riding behind somebody. Actually, riding at the same speed at the front might be max effort and in the pack might be almost coasting. Together, this means you may have a very valid strategy to try to preserve energy (ie. keep with the pack) and count on your better ability to sprint at the end to get ahead of competitors. That of course as long as you believe there is nobody running away. At the extreme of effort, very small differences of effort can have very large effects on your body. If you look at it, a difference of tempo to run a 5k and 10k is very small. The current world records for 5k is 12:35.36 and 10k is 26:11.00. If you look at difference, 5k is 151s/km while 10k is 156s/km, just 5s or 3% slower. And yet that minute difference lets you run twice as far.

hinkley 5y ago
In professional cycling the Ride as Hard as You Can people are necessary but often don’t achieve any real rank on the team. They might not even finish a tour, either having not budgeted enough for the late stages, or being so new that they can’t understand how tired they’re gonna be later. Their claim to fame may be limited to being on the top team, it might be being on a top 5 team. If you’re lucky you team may place several people in the top 10. If you’re their hedge against the captain being injured, that might even be your name in seventh place. Lemond is famous in small part for being number #2 to Bernard Hinault and feeling it should have been him on the podium. But Lemond is the classic case of the unreliable captain. He was like a race horse. On a good day he was like the wind. But a stiff breeze could lay him up. He lamented the Hinault situation but illness stopped him from winning two others. And then that goddamned duck hunting trip… (I met him a few years later, he did a signing at a bike shop owned by a friend… who he as going to go duck hunting with the next day. I so wanted to ask him why he was crazy.) I never felt he had the sort of lieutenants that Armstrong enjoyed, the way he was to Hinault. I’m racking my brain trying to remember who was on Delgado’s team and coming up completely blank. But I think that just proves my point.
- rjsw 5y ago
  > I’m racking my brain trying to remember who was on Delgado’s team and coming up completely blank. Delgado had Miguel Induráin [1] working for him, hardly an unknown rider. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Indur%C3%A1in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Indur%C3%A1in
  - hinkley 5y ago
    Oops. Seems I have flipped Delgado and Indurain in my head. Which I should have realized when the wikipedia page seemed to be understating his win history. Who was Indurain's right hand?
    - rjsw 5y ago
      > Who was Indurain's right hand? His brother ? I think that Jean-François Bernard did that role at the end of Indurain's career.
- lmilcin 5y ago
  > In professional cycling the Ride as Hard as You Can people are necessary but often don’t achieve any real rank on the team. They might not even finish a tour, either having not budgeted enough for the late stages, or being so new that they can’t understand how tired they’re gonna be later. I am not much interested in cycling, but I understand this is the dimension that is not present on Olympics. Or do they also ride as teams and assign from the start who is going to get "protected" to preserve their strength to get the best shot at getting gold?
  - Leherenn 5y ago
    Most countries will have a clear leader yes, especially the big ones with 4/5 riders. Sometimes they hedge their bets by having one guy "free", often in the breakaway. It apparently wasn't so much the case with the Dutch women this year though.
TomK32 5y ago
Why 5k when it's only a week since Austrian Christoph Strasser set the records for 1000 (one thousand) kilometers, in just under a day (with 2 minutes total for breaks and clothes changes).
- lmilcin 5y ago
  Because I ran distances from 5k to marathon (with 10k being my favourite) and so I know from my own experience. I have no knowledge of how you run a 1000k run.
  - TomK32 5y ago
    Ah, 5k running. I was still on topic with cycling. Sorry.
    - lmilcin 5y ago
      Oh, then we mistunderstood each other. Though I should have noticed, it is not possible to run 1000k in a day. Maybe you could, but you would need to have flat terrain and maybe something like a... bike:)
rocqua 5y ago
And yet, there are quite a few solo wins. I think somewhere between 10 and 25 percent of races get won solo? The advantage of the solo strategy is that everyone behind you is trying to put in less effort than the others behind you. So they can get stuck in a game theoretical tragedy of the commons.
orthoxerox 5y ago
Time trial is a better way of finding which rider is the fastest, but the race is so boring without an obvious winner.

hinkley 5y ago

In professional cycling the Ride as Hard as You Can people are necessary but often don’t achieve any real rank on the team. They might not even finish a tour, either having not budgeted enough for the late stages, or being so new that they can’t understand how tired they’re gonna be later. Their claim to fame may be limited to being on the top team, it might be being on a top 5 team. If you’re lucky you team may place several people in the top 10. If you’re their hedge against the captain being injured, that might even be your name in seventh place. Lemond is famous in small part for being number #2 to Bernard Hinault and feeling it should have been him on the podium. But Lemond is the classic case of the unreliable captain. He was like a race horse. On a good day he was like the wind. But a stiff breeze could lay him up. He lamented the Hinault situation but illness stopped him from winning two others. And then that goddamned duck hunting trip… (I met him a few years later, he did a signing at a bike shop owned by a friend… who he as going to go duck hunting with the next day. I so wanted to ask him why he was crazy.) I never felt he had the sort of lieutenants that Armstrong enjoyed, the way he was to Hinault. I’m racking my brain trying to remember who was on Delgado’s team and coming up completely blank. But I think that just proves my point.

rjsw 5y ago
> I’m racking my brain trying to remember who was on Delgado’s team and coming up completely blank. Delgado had Miguel Induráin [1] working for him, hardly an unknown rider. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Indur%C3%A1in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Indur%C3%A1in
- hinkley 5y ago
  Oops. Seems I have flipped Delgado and Indurain in my head. Which I should have realized when the wikipedia page seemed to be understating his win history. Who was Indurain's right hand?
  - rjsw 5y ago
    > Who was Indurain's right hand? His brother ? I think that Jean-François Bernard did that role at the end of Indurain's career.
lmilcin 5y ago
> In professional cycling the Ride as Hard as You Can people are necessary but often don’t achieve any real rank on the team. They might not even finish a tour, either having not budgeted enough for the late stages, or being so new that they can’t understand how tired they’re gonna be later. I am not much interested in cycling, but I understand this is the dimension that is not present on Olympics. Or do they also ride as teams and assign from the start who is going to get "protected" to preserve their strength to get the best shot at getting gold?
- Leherenn 5y ago
  Most countries will have a clear leader yes, especially the big ones with 4/5 riders. Sometimes they hedge their bets by having one guy "free", often in the breakaway. It apparently wasn't so much the case with the Dutch women this year though.

TomK32 5y ago

Why 5k when it's only a week since Austrian Christoph Strasser set the records for 1000 (one thousand) kilometers, in just under a day (with 2 minutes total for breaks and clothes changes).

lmilcin 5y ago
Because I ran distances from 5k to marathon (with 10k being my favourite) and so I know from my own experience. I have no knowledge of how you run a 1000k run.
- TomK32 5y ago
  Ah, 5k running. I was still on topic with cycling. Sorry.
  - lmilcin 5y ago
    Oh, then we mistunderstood each other. Though I should have noticed, it is not possible to run 1000k in a day. Maybe you could, but you would need to have flat terrain and maybe something like a... bike:)

rocqua 5y ago

And yet, there are quite a few solo wins. I think somewhere between 10 and 25 percent of races get won solo? The advantage of the solo strategy is that everyone behind you is trying to put in less effort than the others behind you. So they can get stuck in a game theoretical tragedy of the commons.

orthoxerox 5y ago

Time trial is a better way of finding which rider is the fastest, but the race is so boring without an obvious winner.