Heat and numbness typical of lazy vacation mornings in an Italian seaside resort. Items on the table for a breakfast yet to come. Old TV that you never know if it really works always present in summer homes. The ingredients are all there to fuel the scenario with some healthy Olympics relegated to unconventional times from the time zone.
This morning then begins one of the longest tradition specialties of track cycling: the men's team pursuit. It is one of the many races of Tokyo Olympics marked in my mind more or less with this wording: "good chance of a medal for Italy, but difficult gold".
Good chance because Italy has been playing with the strongest nations for years and because it is among our ranks Filippo Gana, four times world champion in charge of the same specialty in individual version (individual pursuit which curiously is not an Olympic specialty). Difficult gold because Denmark is reigning world champion and seems to be the obligatory favorite.
Qualification: introduction to team pursuit
While the qualifying race is already in an advanced stage, the other companions of this holiday begin to appear, much more attracted by the prospect of breakfast than by cycling on the track. Of course, we are following the Olympics all together, especially the most "famous" competitions, and I try to bring out even less publicized or winning sports, but track cycling is a special sport which at first glance can give many the impression of being a younger brother of its road version.
Moreover, in these Olympics it is the first time that it appears and unfortunately there is the risk that it does not attract. In these situations, however, the television becomes magnetic and everyone, more or less, at least begins to notice that on TV there is a sport in which groups of people apparently from the same team try to ride as fast as possible by doing laps after laps of an elliptical track.
Inevitably I am asked to explain what we are seeing. I feel lucky because, among the many specialties of track cycling, team pursuit is certainly one of the simplest and most intuitive, on the contrary, for example, of omnium e madison.
So I'll explain what I know, even if I'm not an expert at all, starting with the fact that each team, made up of four athletes on bikes, must travel four kilometers in the shortest possible time, consisting of twelve laps of 250 meters each. Usually, two teams run at the same time on the track starting staggered by half a lap, hence the name pursuit. To maintain the highest possible speed, the four riders always line up in single file very close to each other and alternate at the head of the quartet with regular changes since the first one spends much more energy than the others because he cannot take advantage of the slipstream effect.
Finally, a fundamental detail, the time is taken when the third member of the team passes, which is why one of the four athletes can detach from the "train" of the other three. I anticipate a possible question by saying that this practically always happens and if everyone does it there must therefore be an advantage, which I have not yet grasped, in squeezing one of the cyclists more than the others in the first part and then usually make him detach before the last kilometer. .
Someone asks how fast they go and the graphics that occasionally provide this information come to my rescue. We therefore discover together with a mixture of amazement and admiration that they travel even at over 70 km / h, a speed almost impossible to reach and maintain on the road without the help of a descent. There are also those who argue that going around in circles indoors you lose all the beauty of the bike to be outdoors and feel free, but still an eye to the race is throwing it. In all this chatter, Italy gets the second qualifying time without worries behind Denmark and in the semifinals will find the fearsome New Zealand.
Semi-finals: technology and rules
The next morning the situation at home is practically the same as the day before as the semifinals begin. I am happy to note, however, that the interest is a little higher, perhaps because the race certainly has a greater importance, perhaps because I somehow transmitted something. A factor that certainly arouses curiosity is the very special equipment used by runners. Starting from bikes with "solid" wheels and unconventional handlebars, passing through elongated helmets on the neck and up to super tight shirts, everything in this sport is designed to offer as little air resistance as possible, a determining factor at certain speeds. .
The world record with which Italy scoffs New Zealand by nine cents and flies to the final, which is followed by a fairly animated exultation, therefore gives me the perfect opportunity to underline how the constant improvement of times in this discipline is due not so much to the greater thrust produced by the riders compared to the past but rather to the greater efficiency of the equipment, track including, in transforming that muscle energy into kinetic energy wresting watts from friction and air resistance. The questions on these issues are wasted but in general on the technology I am not at all exhaustive, for example I have no idea how much one of those bikes can cost.
In my ignorance, however, I am convinced that it is the medium itself, in its hyperspecialized and therefore uncommon version, that is giving stimuli. After all, we all have experience of the bike, which is a much more common tool than those of other sports. See then the best athletes in the world with their mammoth quadriceps to compete in the Olympics on that type of medium it can not fail to attract attention in some way.
In the second semifinal, however, I am caught unprepared on a regulatory aspect. In fact, Denmark dominated against Great Britain, who lost two runners along the way, which is usually a doom to defeat. The dominance is so clear that the Danish train reaches the third British runner but, instead of making an easy overtaking, he tampons it awkwardly. Fall, race suspended and eyes on me waiting for an explanation.
Explanation that I don't have, but which apparently does not even have the jury since only more than an hour later Denmark is declared the winner because it has reached the British third and therefore, by definition, the chase is over. Anyone who wanted another victory for Italy against his majesty's subjects after the European Championships will be satisfied only three days later by the cent that will award the 4 × 100 blues at the photo finish.
Final: comeback at sea
The context of the next day is this time a boat ride and a cell phone with an acceptable connection even in the middle of the calm sea (not obvious since we had seen the 100m final delayed by a few minutes ...). Shortly before 11, time of the final that everyone knows this time, I block all operations. There are those who are still in the water and those who sunbathe while struggling with the glare to see something on the small screen of the phone. In four minutes and pennies you can play a gold medal at the Olympics.
We clearly don't play it, but it's a bit like it is as the tension mounts along with the number of people around the small screen. The start of Italy is good but Denmark gradually takes advantage up to one kilometer from the finish with over eight tenths of an advantage. Italy has already recovered a disadvantage in the last kilometer in the semifinals thanks to the last laps of Ganna but this time the gap seems too much and the opponents are in full swing. Even the tone of the Italian commentator becomes more subdued.
Then the route is reversed, first with minimal recoveries, then with more and more cents snatched at each half turn, you stand up, the commentator's voice returns high and excited, you shudder agitated by hope. At the last detection before the finish line, the Danish advantage thinned to just 55 thousandths, the trend is clear and in my heart I tell myself that it is done and with little superstition I prepare to cheer. And in fact, upon arrival, the only time measurement that really matters, the green light lights up on Italy's time with a gap even enough to make the victory appear perceptible to the human eye.
I almost throw my phone into the water while I release the freshly charged scream of joy which merges and strengthens in the collective one. In an uncrowded corner of the sea, the exultation of a few fills the warm air for a few seconds. I dive into the water happy, of that senseless happiness that sports victories give you as a fan, because in the end you have nothing to do with it, but true, as you lived it.
I dive into the water even happier because that happiness was unexpectedly shared with those with whom you have already shared a lot of things, but never track cycling.
Article The team pursuit explained to my friends From Sports born.
