The BBC News has this and other great images of the mountain bike course built at Hadleigh Farm outside London for the 2012 Olympic Games. While there aren’t a ton of images, the course does look fun, and seeing racers come through this rock garden neck and neck fighting for one of the three lines will certainly be entertaining. We’ll see who’ll pull the Paola Pezzo move off the outside line FTW!
More photos after the break…
Photo above and below from LOCOG.
While the course looks like fun… I’d love to race on it… but, this isn’t what comes to mind when I think XC. I’d think many fans and racers would agree. I’m sure it packages well for TV coverage and spectator viewing, but it does risk pulling the sport “out of the woods”. Or, maybe it will just add a new type of racing… I’m all for that.
For an XC race that will have 10’s of thousands of people spectating ,TV crews, journos and IOC officials all over the course then it looks ideal.
There is plenty of space around the course so the TV coverage should be fantastic when compared to a normal WC Course. Normally TV camera crews have to compromise on the quality of the coverage as they cant set up their equipment in the best locations.
Spectators will easily be able to move to different areas of the course and I’d imagine that regardless of where you stand on the course you will be able to see other sections.
And lets be fair how many other XC courses have berms, drops and gap jumps?
http://www.singletrackworld.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2011/03/Olympic-MTB-145.jpg
