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I guess I didnt realize how far down the track he crashed, he was so close to bringing it home.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWMY-4EKPHU
Can anyone explain the points world rankings? I understand that if you go top 20 in Q1 you get points and if you make the final you get points. For everyone else that doesn't make it through they get no points. I nerded out on a bunch of riders that haven't made a final yet and not only are they dropping in ranking which makes sense but they are also losing points which doesn't make sense. All these riders have the same result which is zero. Some have a dropped 5-20 spots and lost 10- 20 points and others have dropped over 100 spots and lost over 100 points? I don't get it? One example of this I noticed was a rider that started the season in the top 50 and is now ranked over 300 after 5 rounds. Compare this with another rider that was ranked in the 70's at the start of the season has not made a final and he's still in the 70's ... am I missing something? If you look into it, it's all over place.
UCI world rankings are based on a yearly rolling total. So each month sees points added and taken away as they expire. The WC rankings I believe begin with the first race and end at the last.
I think points are counted on a revolving calendar. Last years points are good for 12 months....so rider started the season with 300 pts and as we move through the year the points from last year drop off when they reach 12 months. \
There will certainly be some guys that will need to go race some national level UCI races in order to keep them / their team in points in order to qualify for next season. Anyone not keeping an eye on that now will be in a mad scramble come fall time to go race obscure races in some foreign country that has UCI points on offer. Going to suck to show up to your local Malaysia DH race and half the WC field is there battling for points.
Big mistake on my part. I know your dude is young still, but that has to bug a guy. The level of sacrifice to being that competitive & seeing a guy in the same second as you get a free pass when you're on the other side of the world from home.
You need to give The Downtime Andora pre shoe a listen.
https://www.downtimepodcast.com/
Chris Kilmurray first calls out your flat earth theory then explained why the hold was the time it was.
This is the internet sir. Spoon feed me a time stamp or I'm I'm watching dogs tripping their owners on loop.
Oh...and he and I already "chit chatted" prior to this publishing. Dude's fast to respond to feedback. 💪
Just listened. Stoppage affected the outcome in a manner unfair to the KNOWN nature of our sport. Hard start times establish weather as a firmly set & unarguable variable.
Injury. Lightning. Valid reasons to change start times. 5-6 cameras going down should never affect the race.
Also, how hard is it to relay exactly what he stated in that 1 minute clip in the post show? Why would WBD & UCI not be transparent?
Issue an immediate statement to media & teams.
This is professional sports?
I think the teams on the ground there at the event are the barometer of if this was an issue. I've only listened to the Downtime post show and Andora pre-show and is seems none of them (Neko, Kilmurray, and Oli) think it was an issue. Troy didn't mention it in his race vlog on Youtube. Are any teams up in arms about the delay affecting the outcome and just aren't sharing it publicly?
I can assure you that if the TV cameras for an NFL playoff game went down, and TV viewers could only see 80% of the field, they would suspend the game. And this is why there's major redundancy in big-time pro sports to ensure TV coverage doesn't stop.
The lights went out at the Super Bowl. Automated line monitors in tennis misfire. Stuff goes wrong all the time in other sports.
Yup, stuff always goes wrong with live events. Not sure what your point is though?
Hugo Pigeon got a 3-peat. His camera died a few minutes before he finishes, but you can see in the instances he looks behind, he has totally abandoned everybody. Can't tell if he's on his Ransom or something else.
It's ok. We're agreeing. 🤣
WOW. he isn't out there to win, here's out there to bury everyone else.
Also he's on Forbidden, a Druid even more impressively
You know what? That makes perfect sense. After years of watching Megavalanche and seeing the winners and their rigs, I had a sneaking suspicion that most of the people are over-biked. The hardest part of the race is the first 1/4, then it turns into a hardcore XC/trail race.
Hugo figured it out; just get past the glacier and first rocky bits, then it's smooth sailing, but that requires an aggressive short-travel bike for maximum sprint power at the beginning.
Just popping in here to say that after being somewhat of a ric defender for the past year and a half, last weeks broadcast was the straw that broke me. He isn’t the guy for the job and it’s yet another factor stopping me from paying 40 CANADIAN DOLLARS a month to watch the races.
We've got another Simulated Racer article from La Thuile ripe for your viewing! Some cool data analysis about how fast the winning times were compared to the simulated fastest times, and some stats on Ronan Dunne's consistency and the overall danger of a track like La Thuile.
https://www.vitalmtb.com/features/simulated-racer-less-dangerous-youd-think-la-thuile-data-analysis
he’s probably high up in the running for least insightful sports commentator of all time.
Claudio Caluori is still higher up on my list 😂. And sadly RC4 is on the list too.
I'm not sure if I was too focused on the riding before and this has been at every race, but WB placing a superman add right in a big open spot on track with a camera on it is really funny to me.
My conspiracy is that the steeper the track the less likely Bruni is to win 😂
No, the new Superman movie just released (Warner Bros) and there was a tie in. They even had Bruni in a special shirt during track walk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3Vo0UajimU&t=821s
Anybody have any thoughts on BK's opinion of the "secret line" controversy from the last Hardline event? It starts at about 13:40 in the above clip.
I think the main problem with the argument is separating getting over a life-threatening feature vs line choice. (And not conflating the two.)
As well as, to play devil's advocate, BK weaponizing the fact that he is willing to be the tow in for so many riders. It's nice... Until you start implying that backs NEED to be scratched now and all race lines must be shared because I towed multiple people over the 90.
I think he is still right on the Hardline practice has to be about working together part. But I think he missed the forest for the trees on what part is racing/racecraft and what parts are clearing 'one line' terrifyingly lethal features that are mandatory to get down the hill for anyone trying to do a race run.
And the worst bit is if he were for some reason to 'refuse to tow people into features' in Wales... I'd argue HE is going to be the one to seal the fate of Hardline. Not the Aussies hiding local race lines on a single berm section.
On top of the fact that the track was taped the way it was... To kinda imply there was invisible tape there as a community agreement to not take that line is just getting silly... If it IS that big of an issue, clarify and ask for a course re-taping. Don't just rely on some kind of honor/code agreement that we don't use the entire track, particularly when it saves .5-1 seconds
Didn’t Dan booker whose gap it was spend every bit as much time helping people out as Bernard?
didn’t Jackson see the gap done live and chose to do it? I guess that’s a benefit of a good qualifier.
Watching Bernard over the years he seems to think to be be on the “victim” side of things more often than not. I don’t really see any equation between helping people thru dangerous features and everyone agreeing to ride a feature instead of the bline come race day and essentially giving away all of your racing lines from top to bottom of the course. I think the vast majority of people who participated in a dh race either helped or was helped thru some feature on the course. I don’t think the majority thought that meant the other guy had to tell them all their lines.
I recently discovered that I could watch full race replays through Prime (somehow HBO Max shows up in there). Just takes 24 hours or so to be available. Was watching yesterday afternoon and my wife (not a rider) came in the room and sat for a bit. After about 5 minutes, she said something about how bad the announcing was.
It's easy to complain about announcing, but after watching good chunks of the live broadcast, it's easy to see what everyone has been complaining about.
One thing that struck me was they don't seem to have clearly defined rolls. Seems like you ought to have the play-by-play person, color/stat person, and rider perspective. But Neko's the one dropping most of the stats and data. I really like what he shares, but hell I could sift through data and drop some well-timed gems. I'd rather him be talking about lines, corners, race tactics, etc.
* Not a criticism of Neko. He's clearly doing his homework and the content of what he says is generally great.
I'm not sure it's a conspiracy. I think it makes sense that he'd do better on a track that isn't as steep and needs more pedaling/power vs a steep/technical track where Jackson's size means he can brake later and carry more speed in/out of corners and through crazy technical sections.
What conspiracy? Every elite rider stood out against 3 man podium & WBD said "Fokk you all. We own you now."
Everyone saied "Hey that's a cheater line" over Amaury" WBD said "Fokk you. We own you."
If Troy or anyone spoke out & dared imply WBD held them for a top 5 raqin free show, WBD would say "Fokk you. We own you."
I don't need conspiracy theory. WBD owns our sport & no racer or fan input will change that. We'll do what they say or they'll simply turn off the subscription & sell the cameras & we'll go dark.
It's nuts how close the men's elite standings are right now considering that Jackson won four of the first five and two thirds of the races so far. After Loic won in Andorra, it's only 150 or so points separating him and Jackson, which is less than the points for one win.
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