Evenepoel Takes the Double Gold; Faulkner Surprise Winner; The Controversy Over Radios; Olympics Could Drive Change in Cycling; Anti-Doping Still Overshadows Olympic Excitement; Snoop Dogg ...
Key Takeaways:
● Evenepoel is First Male Rider to Win Olympic Gold Double
● Are Radios a Good Thing or Bad Thing?
● Can The Olympics Drive Change in Cycling?
● The WNBA TV Deal, and What It Means for Women’s Sport
● Olympic Athletes Question Anti-Doping Practices
● The Snoop Effect
By running away with both last week’s rainy individual time trial and Sunday’s marathon road race, Remco Evenepoel became the first male rider in history to score the Olympic double gold. In what was the longest Olympic road event ever at 272 kilometers, Evenepoel took advantage of the relatively small peloton size to mount a sustained attack, gradually dropping one rider after another, riding alone for the last 15 kilometers and overcoming a late puncture to win by more than a minute over Frenchmen Valentin Madouas and Christophe Laporte, who took the silver and bronze. Evenepoel was significantly aided by the lack of race radios in Olympic racing, which made it more difficult for the peloton and chasing groups to know exactly what was going on during the urban finishing circuits, what the gap was, and when or how to coordinate chasing attempts. Indeed, some top finishers including Laporte were not situationally aware of their overall placement at the line. This kind of unpredictability creates an excitement that may often be lacking in routine UCI WorldTour races, and typically leads to calls for abandoning radio communications more generally. However, that seems unlikely, as the countervailing safety concerns – the ability of race directors to brief riders on upcoming dangers, sharp turns or road furniture – will probably be given heavier weight.
A day later, the American Kristen Faulkner took a surprising win in the women’s road race, also by almost a minute over Netherlands’ Marianne Vos and Belgium’s Lotte Kopecky. While her victory lacked the theatrics of Evenepoel’s a day earlier – she chose to ride full gas over the line rather than stop and pose with her bike – the outcome was no less dramatic due to the explosive three-up, across-the-road sprint for the silver and bronze behind her. Faulkner, who will compete later this week in track events, was not even originally scheduled to race the event, and only stepped in when qualifier Taylor Knibb voluntarily opted out of the event to focus on her triathlon competitions. Numerous medals will be awarded later this week in the various track racing events.
With just the track events left on the events schedule, how will the Paris Olympics change the fortunes of global cycling? There’s little doubt that the appearance of a rider in a national team jersey on the start line – be it road racing or mountain biking – will inspire young riders who might become future Olympians. An oft-repeated statement among broadcast personalities is that if you are on the start line of an Olympic event, then you are among the top competitors in your sport. While that is true in many respects for certain sports like gymnastics, it is less so for others like cycling. A rider’s Olympic berth speaks more to the qualification criteria, which can be hyper-competitive in some of cycling’s WorldTour-heavy European countries, but perhaps more nuanced in the Pro/Continental focused Asia and Africa calendars. The 90 or so riders who started the men’s and women’s road races don’t necessarily represent the top 90 riders in the world by ranking, but do represent the top UCI riders in their respective countries – whether that nation is a cycling powerhouse or not. The ability to be seen at the front of the race or to be followed briefly in the time trial – Afghanistan’s Hamishi sisters, or Rwandan Eric Manizabayo showing next year’s world championships host nation’s colors – is enough to make a powerful statement that the bicycle is more than just a transportation or recreational vehicle. Rather, it is a moment of inspiration for a youngster to imagine themselves clipped in and pedaling for gold. Pro cycling needs these kinds of jolts to keep moving forward – competitively and economically.
The biggest investments in world sport have always been in the domain of men’s teams and men’s competitive leagues, but recent gains in the popularity for women’s sports has rapidly accelerated its investment scale. Just prior to the Olympics, the NBA expanded its licensing portfolio and while those agreements will likely exceed the $77 billion in revenues publicly quoted, the WNBA will likely reap somewhere near $3 billion from a variety of new broadcasting partnerships and new media markets, and bolstered by two expansion teams to soon join the league. The jump from the current annual haul of $60 million to over $200 million annually follows the explosion in the women’s league’s profile, including the crossover popularity of stars Sabrina Ionescu, Breanna Stewart, and A’ja Wilson, and the cultural impacts of generational talent Caitlin Clark. Team owners are investing in purpose-built training facilities and co-sharing larger arenas, with sellouts becoming the norm. There is even talk of league separation – could the WNBA decouple and chart its own path in the future? Women’s pro cycling is nowhere near that juncture in the road, but with the Tour de France Femmes tantalizingly close to its Rotterdam start, what moves should cycling take to broaden its broadcast reach and capitalize on its unique niche? The unpredictability, rapidly rising talent level, and undeniable excitement of women's cycling is a perfect vehicle for sports storytelling and marketing. One hopes that Faulkner’s road race gold isn’t just one story lost in the wilderness, but rather a tipping point in the narrative that helps to build investment, identity, and new opportunities for the sport.
As we have been mentioning almost every week, there has been a good deal of anti-doping controversy during the lead up and into the Olympics. The ongoing scandals in swimming, national anti-doping agency conflicts and policy shortcomings, and recalcitrant posturing by WADA and the IOC over their authority poses an existential threat to many elite sports. If not soon resolved, these doping scandals will inhibit marketing investment and media growth that are vital to the economics of sports like swimming and athletics. And on a deeper level, athlete mistrust in the current WADA-enforced system creates a layer of doubt among competitors and fans; can they believe what they are seeing? Nowhere was this more apparent than when a British swimmer openly questioned the validity of the Chinese team’s 4x100 medley relay win – two of the Chinese competitors were among the 23 named in the doping scandal which broke in April.
While doping concerns have not cast a direct pall over the current games like Ben Johnson’s case did in the 1988 Olympics, the indirect shadow is nonetheless taking a toll. Pro cycling itself spent much of the July news cycle answering – or even deferring – questions about the superhuman performances of its top riders at the Tour de France in July, and newly revealed techniques like carbon monoxide inhalation did little to explain away the peak watts and record average speeds or quell suspicions. It remains to be seen if the Chinese scandal finally quiets down or if it explodes with new revelations, but one sentiment has firmly set: if the current system doesn’t work, it’s high time for athletes, governance, and funding bodies to admit as much and work towards reforms.
But when is a performance enhancing drug (PED) not really a performance enhancer? One of the anti-doping reforms lobbied by critics and scientists is WADA’s list of banned substances. The ever-expanding tick list of medications and supplements – often noted with multiple names due to variances in formulation – presents a veritable minefield for athletes, trainers, and physicians to navigate. There is also debate whether or not some substances on the list are in fact performance enhancing in the first place. A recent article summarized many of the more controversial studies which purport to show that some medications provide no more of a boost than a placebo. But rather than fall into a logic trap – i.e., an EPO placebo showed as much benefit as actual EPO use in one scenario – a wider issue is whether or not there is enough funding for studies to support placing various substances on the banned list. Some drugs seem to be included by potential causality – that is, their therapeutic effects might provide an unfair advantage to an athlete in competition. Yet WADA policy is itself a hindrance to progress: PED studies involving elite athletes would explicitly lead to suspensions of those athletes for having been given PEDs in the first place. However, without such experimental groups, is the WADA list meaningful if sub-par club athletes form the data set? In the doping arms race, those who are cheating have the advantage because they are not obliged to publish their discoveries, while testing agencies often don’t know what they’re trying to find in the tests. Setting aside deficiencies in the CAS appeals process (non-scientists tasked with science-based decisions, as in the Halep case), the path toward reforms may not be a straight line.
One of the surprises of this Olympics (other than U.S. medals in MTB and a road gold) is the nearly universal praise for the presence of Snoop Dogg as a celebrity commentator and audience booster. His quips, insights, and ability to mesh with a wide variety of sports personalities and athletes has created a cultural flashpoint which has put more than just eyes on the competition he is observing. What is he wearing? Who is he being seen with on camera? How is he reacting to the action and how is he riffing on the experience? When these games are over and the “Snoop effect” is quantified into marketing activation and sporting interest, it will be interesting to see how much NBC’s investment – rumored to be in excess of $500K daily – pays off for his oversized influencer status. We’ve examined this phenomenon before, particularly in terms of how cycling’s broadcast booth product is in dire need of similar improvement – to create new fan-friendliness. More to the point, the boost of celebrity cross-pollination and social influencing in pro cycling is almost nonexistent. When will pro cycling’s broadcast showrunners be able to engineer (or afford) the same kind of celebrity collaboration we’re witnessing in Paris?