In the men’s road race at the Toyko Olympics, A. Yates gave an impressive performance, placing in the top ten after making it into the elite pursuit group and even opening up the sprint for the line in an attempt to win silver.
A. Yates later told, “It was a pretty tough day, I think we did the best we could.” We gave it our all on the bike, but in the end I just didn’t have the legs for it.
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A. Yates Olympic Games Tokyo 2020
A. Yates, who hadn’t raced since Liège-Bastogne-Liège, was cramping up in the final kilometres of the 234-kilometer race but still managed to be the first to sprint for second place behind Richard Carapaz. This was despite the fact that A. Yates knew he didn’t have the fastest finish in the group that included Wout van Aert and Tadej Pogar.
“It was my first race back after a long layoff, and I was cramping badly. Where exactly I ended up, I have no idea.” A. Yates elaborated.
“I tried to go early on the other side because the headwind on the final straight meant I was doomed to finish last no matter what, but Van Aert opened out on his side early and swept everyone along with him. I really didn’t do anything that could have made the day any better, so it ended up being a wonderful one.”
Despite losing half their squad in the first crash, when Tao Geoghegan Hart and Geraint Thomas went down, A. Yates is satisfied with Great Britain’s performance, especially because his brother Simon finished 17th.
So we haven’t had the ideal preparation as a team, but I’m sure we can be happy and we’ll be back in a few years time and try again. We had two guys down early, and in general how everyone’s come into the race, I haven’t raced in a long time, everyone else has come from the Tour, either crashing or getting to the finish battered and bruised.
Before Geoghegan Hart competes in his solo time trial on Wednesday, Team GB will keep an eye on his health.
Final Words
“We have some concerns about that. The doctor is now investigating. He did get scraped up on his side, but it’s nothing too serious “members of the squad reported.
“Ideally, his hand bruise is nothing more than moderately serious. In the future, we will have additional information.”
