Saturday, August 09, 2008
Olympics!
I left on vacation the final Saturday of the Tour and was unable to remotely post a final 2008 Tour de France summary; but we heartily congratulate Wim Vansevenant for his accomplishments and move onward!
Cyclist Ahmed Belgasem representing Libya was the final finisher in the men's road race at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, who finished 21:22 after the first rider across the line.
Update: ACK! My error! I wasn't able to properly scroll sideways on the NBC site (which keeps auto-refreshing, much to my annoyance) and that was just a preliminary split. Oh well, I'm happy to recognize Belgasem's participation for Libya anyway. But he was an earlier DNF.
DNFs also included familiar names such as Dave Zabriskie from the USA and Robbie Hunter from South Africa, also Alberto Contador for Spain and Jens Voigt for Germany, and Stuart O'Grady for Australia. I guess it was pretty nasty air out there.
The actual final finisher came in 90th out of 143 starters, 41:11 after the first place finisher, and represents the nation of Brazil: Luciano Pagliarini Mendonca. He was 3rd in the Pan American Games road race last year. This time around he beat 37% of the starters.
I recommend Jonathan Crowe's excellent DFL blog for ongoing coverage of the Olympics - for those who want to read beyond the simplistic sound-byte headlines surrounding the podium-finisher medalists!
Cyclist Ahmed Belgasem representing Libya was the final finisher in the men's road race at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, who finished 21:22 after the first rider across the line.
Update: ACK! My error! I wasn't able to properly scroll sideways on the NBC site (which keeps auto-refreshing, much to my annoyance) and that was just a preliminary split. Oh well, I'm happy to recognize Belgasem's participation for Libya anyway. But he was an earlier DNF.
DNFs also included familiar names such as Dave Zabriskie from the USA and Robbie Hunter from South Africa, also Alberto Contador for Spain and Jens Voigt for Germany, and Stuart O'Grady for Australia. I guess it was pretty nasty air out there.
The actual final finisher came in 90th out of 143 starters, 41:11 after the first place finisher, and represents the nation of Brazil: Luciano Pagliarini Mendonca. He was 3rd in the Pan American Games road race last year. This time around he beat 37% of the starters.I recommend Jonathan Crowe's excellent DFL blog for ongoing coverage of the Olympics - for those who want to read beyond the simplistic sound-byte headlines surrounding the podium-finisher medalists!
Labels: Belgasem, Contador, Hunter, Mendonca, Vansevenant, Zabriskie
