B_Doughtie wrote:
It’s a little bit of skill + power + psychological. And when you have a weakness in any of those, the other gals are now smart enough and brave enough to make you pay. It wasn’t always like that in the female ranks. But now “weaknesses” are being put on the limit, as they should.
So if it’s psychological, either you figure out a way to improve and get over it or you are kinda screwed. But maybe some of those athletes just loathe one segment of the sport that it really is a struggle. GJ talked about that with the swim and a comeback (she did a good interview in 2017 about it) She recognizes what it takes to make it work and just doing swim sets at the local pool won’t work for her. She needs the daily attention from a coach and others around her to push her. So whether it’s the S B or R, you can have a mental hurdle. The bike is likely the hardest because the injury risk is the highest, and you are “going fast” and frankly that can be “scary”. So if you are scared/fearful you’ll always have this “timid”ness about you that others can then just take advantage of.
GJ used to kinda be “meh” on the bike. I don’t think she was ever as bad as someone like Summer is this late into her career. But she was never really one to push the pace, def more of a passenger in the group. The winter before Rio her team went to California and rode down some steep climbs on the back of a professional driven moto going over 100+ mph, over and over for like a week. It taught her how to see the lines, how to position yourself, how to corner fast, and how to say “see this isn’t so bad”. Next thing you know she’s the one pushing the bike to keep Spirig in check in Rio.
But that’a how invested she was in on winning and mind you this was after her dominant winning streak. Hell look into her story of when she made London Olympics and her decision to go all in or stay as part time triathlete, part time accountant. It takes boldness sometimes to fix things and to truly give yourself the best shot possible.
And sometimes being the worst S B or R in your training group over and over and over you don’t actually get to work on said skill. Like if your always worst out of corners, sometimes it’s kinda hard to figure out exactly what it is that makes you bad at it. It’s easy to scream at the athlete “hold the wheel” but if your the worst skilled athlete there you kinda don’t gain confidence from it. So there can be many reasons why said athletes continue to struggle with it. And hell said athletes can look good in practice and be right there on said person’s wheel but when it comes to doing it when the lights are on, they fail.
And when an athlete doesn’t look comfortable or relaxed on a bike, they simply are going to struggle on a technical itu course with many turns and u turns. You can fake it more in non draft than you can in itu where the technical skills are just part of the job.
Go watch the I believe 2013 MTR when US decided to pick a non draft bike specialist on the relay. He easily was among the worst bike handlers in the field, coming into the corners sitting on the hoods all up right (I call it granny turns). They went from leading to either 3rd or 4th on his final leg. They asked him what happened, his response “these guys know how to handle a bike”.
I understand all of it, and I guess Summer is working on it...but its been like that since the first time I saw her. I am not a coach but if she struggles and hates the bike, well, I would go to theraphy and train the smartest way that I would be adviced, and I guess that includes reps reps reps and confront the danger. Wish her the best to be able to be amongst the top girls because she is one of the top runners. By the way, I have not seen that in the men field ever, or as long as I remember... but Gwen, Cassandre, Summer????... is it panic?
Spaniard. Sorry for my english for the sensitive ones :P