The 2012 Olympic mountain bike course has been completed at Hadleigh Farm in Essex and the reaction, at least on the Internet to the unveiling, is a collective yawn. Rather than being staged in a forest, this course is laid out on an open hillside, presumably to make it more spectator friendly and easier to televise. I can understand that and appreciate anything to give Olympic mountain biking more exposure. The lack of enthusiasm to the course seems to center around the track not having any real (natural) technical challenges beyond a few man-made “obstacles” scattered along the trail in odd places and the overly groomed nature of the less challenging sections that are more akin to a walking path than a mountain bike trail. After viewing several of the online video previews for myself, I have to admit the course does appear less challenging than one would expect for an Olympic venue. I realize the camera has a flattening effect and probably doesn’t do the climbs justice, but it does appear like something geared more for a cat-3 racer rather than the World’s best. If anyone reading this has actually been there or ridden it, I’d love to hear your opinion of the course.
Here is a highlight preview of the 2012 course along with some video of past Olympic races for comparison.
London 2012 course preview:
Atlanta 1996 (time 10:15)
Athens 2004 (time 10:00)
Beijing 2008 (time 4:00)
11 hours ago
1 comment:
A few things come to mind - that course looks incredibly boring. Where are the trees? Also as much as I love mountainbiking, it would be awfully boring to watch on TV. It is definitely better to be in the mix or watching in person!
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