"The 33"-Road Bike Racing - Mario Cippolini

It appears as if he is considering a run at the individual pursuit in the Athens Olympics.

The story I read had a loose interpertation of his Italian that said he checked and found out there were no mountains on a velodrome, so he felt confident he could finish the race.

:D ;)

Sorry to sound lame, but I cant find any details on this. Could someone explain what the Individual Pursuit is? Some sort of 3km sprint race?

In the Olympics, it is 4km in distance. Two riders start at opposite sides of the track, one at the start line, the other across the track. The event is to try to catch the other rider before that rider gets the 4k done. At this level that usually does not happen, so it's the shortest time to cover the distance that wins.

In other words, it's a 4k sprint race on the velodrome.

And no mountains to cross.... ;)

The races can be varying distances, especially at the junior levels, but typically they are 4k at the world/pro level.

http://www.procycling.com/news_main.asp?newsId=4792

I believe Cipo was at one time, in the mist shrouded distant past, a member of a World Champion, possibly Olympic Gold Medal winning Italian National 4 man pursuit team. Could explain hy he needs such a big wind up from his team "train" to be succesful(Ghent Wevelgem' victory over Freddy and George notwithstanding).