“Citius, Altius, Fortius.” – “Swifter, Higher, Stronger.”
The motto of the Olympics is a great inspiration. Yet, these days the Olympics deviates from this pure motto of athletic inspiration. We have events like synchronised swimming (though thankfully, the solo variety of synchronised swimming was not continued after 1992), even golf is going to be admitted in 2016
Anyway, I can live with these other events if the classic events of sport are left. I wouldn’t usually write on this topic, but, I feel it is the height of absurdity for the Olympic committee to abolish the great 4 Km pursuit event (and 3KM womens pursuit).
The 4Km individual pursuit is one of the classic events in the cycling programme. It is a simple test of power, speed and endurance for just over 4 minutes. Unlike many other track events, it is not one for the sprinters, but an event ridden by some of the top road cyclists, as well as the specialist pursuiters. It is an event ordinary cyclists can relate to and at the same time admire how the top riders can ride at just under 60kmph for 4 minutes.
Team events are good, but, the ultimate race is for the individual. I like the 4*100 Metre relay, but, it can’t compete with the individual 100 metres.
Chris Boardman in Olympic Pursuit.
The 4Km pursuit has been in the Olympics for many years, since 1962. Who can forget Chris Boardman’s triumph in Barcelona on his revolutionary Lotus bike in 1992? or Bradley Wiggins triumph in 2008. But, it is not the fact British cyclists have happened to won the event a few times that I want it retained. It is because it is a great event, with a great history and should not be shelved from the Olympic programme.
It is being replaced with an Omnium event, an event that no one has really heard of.
If swimming can have 36 medals for a huge variety of events and distances and 18 medals for wrestling, I don’t see why cycling can’t retain its blue ribband track event. It was bad enough to lose the 1KM pursuit, but to lose the 4Km pursuit as well is even worse.
The problem is that within cycling there is no individual event between the 500 metre sprint and the road time trial (around 50Km). This is wrong. There should be an individual distance between these two.
No one would suggest having 2 swimming events of 50 metres and 1,000 metres.
I really feel there should be some kind of Olympic heritage programme to protect significant events with a great history. That’s just my personal opinion of course, but I often don’t see the logic behind the decisions of the UCI (- don’t get me started on the world hour record – limited to 1979 technology or something like that)
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