Mountain Biking in the Bejing Olympics

Where Have All of the American's Gone?
Julien Abalson Defends his Gold in MTB at the Bejing Olympics

Wow! That's all I have to say about Julien Abalson, this guy can fly on a mountain bike. But, Where have all the American’s gone? As I watch this race, I’m in amazement.

First, by the fact that my view is as good as being there in Bejing. And, I’m sitting at my desk watching it on my laptop. The quality of the video is excellent and the multiple cameras follow the entire race. Never before have we had this opportunity to watch an entire race with such quality online. Even when races have been covered on TV, we only catch highlights. And, XC has traditionally been hard to watch because the racers are in the woods.

Second, we are watching a sport that was born in the USA on a USA network (NBC), but there is not one American that even finished the race! American’s Todd Wells and Adam Craig competed in the finals, but did not finish.

Third, the course looks challenging, but certainly not too challenging for us not to have someone in the top 10. Where have all the American mountain bikers gone? Back in the day we had John Tomac, Ned Overand and Tinker Juarez, today there is no one.


You have to give it to France’s Julien Absalon though, once he decided to break, he was gone and they couldn’t catch him. Otherwise, the Swede's looked good and Italy's Marco Fontana.


If you haven't seen the race, you owe it to yourself to watch it. You may have to download the video player and fill out some crap, but it's well worth the effort. Here's the link:
http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/share.html?videoid=cy1h-bj-sd35-082308-145502



Julien Absalon completely dominated the race after about the 2nd lap and won his second consecutive Gold medal. His teammate, Jean Christophe Peraud, finished second earning the Silver, but he was over a minute behind. Christoph Sauser won Bronze finishing 2:28 behind Absalon.


It was too bad that they didn't have Downhill or 4x at the Olympics, but what can you say. Mountain bikers, Jared Graves, ACC and Jill Kintner all made the mains in bmx. It's great to see these athletes crossing over and remaining competitive in both sports.


You can see some pics and read some more about the olympics at http://www.atbmx.com/


Go USA!
Barry Page
http://www.atbmx.com/