Winning by collaboration

I watched the women's Olympic cycling road race this afternoon and it was exciting. I am beginning to understand the tactics needed for winning a cycle race and the collaboration needed.

In running races you aim to get ahead on your own and reach the winning line as fast as you can! A long cycle race requires a different approach. This is because of slip-streaming. A cycle can go 25 % faster (or you need 25% less energy) when you ride in the slipstream of the bike ahead. When you ride together as a peloton then the group slipstream means that the riding is easy for the whole group.

In Sunday's race the three women, a Dutchwoman, an English woman and an Russian broke away from the peloton and formed a chain gang - a cycling manoeuvre where they all help each other by sharing the hard riding at the front and so all equally benefit from the slipstream. This involves rotating the lead in a continuous manoeuvre as the front rider peels off and joins the back. It works with small groups but three is the minimum number of riders needed to make it work effectively. The women who had made the break had to help each other to ensure that they stayed ahead of the main group - if they failed to collaborate then the bunch would have caught them up. They could only stay ahead by collaboration. Of course in the last hundred metres the sprint started and then it became each one for themselves as they raced for medals. 

Racing cyclists compete as teams, supporting each others strengths. In this way the climbers will push the pace on the hills and the team will try to ensure that their sprinter gets to the front at the end.  The team can also set the speed of the main peloton and hold it back if they want to stop others from catching up their team member who is in a break away group ahead! Most cycle races are team events in which each member of a team has a part to play to ensure that one member of the team wins for them all. Of course with such complex tactical race planning all sorts of things can go wrong. The most well thought out game plan can fail due to those things that cannot be planned for such as punctures, weather, crashes, and the behaviour of other riders.

It seems to me though that the collaborative approach needed for winning a cycle road race can teach us a very  important lesson for life.

Olympic opening ceremony

I liked the opening ceremony. I didn't expect to. I was cynical about the possibility of meaningless froth and ephemera. But the whole thing was entertaining, fast moving and with deep and profound meanings about what it is to be British and what we value and cherish. Danny Boyle's interpretation of history was stylised from Hobbiton to the dark satanic mills of Mordor in a few minutes! The transformation of fields to asphalt was fast and dramatic.  It was amazing spectacle due in no small part to the scale of the performance and the sheer number of volunteers taking part.The humour was integral - and what other performance could possibly include Her Majesty, James Bond, Mr Bean, J K Rowling, Kenneth Brannagh, Evelyn Glenny,  Simon Rattle, Paul McCartney, a fleeting image of Cumbernauld (from the film Gregory's girl) and the Arctic Monkeys?! The suffragettes appeared as did CND. 
 
It praised the National Health service and meditated on remembrance in dance to the hymn "Abide with me" 
 
There was Beckham on a speedboat and the inventor of the World wide web, and to carry the Olympic flag Daniel Barenboim and Ban Ki Moon among other worthies.  There was great beauty in the way the torches lit individual copper kettles which then lifted to be transformed into one vast cauldron of flame - inspired!We sat at home in front of the TV and munched though a huge box of Strawberries. It was a great night. 
But not everyone thought so...

"RUGELEY MP Aidan Burley caused outrage tonight during the opening ceremony of the London Olympics, describing the spectacle as "leftie multicultural c**p" on social networking site Twitter. As the show began, a tweet from the Conservative MP's official account read: "The most leftie opening ceremony I have ever seen - more than Beijing, the capital of a communist state! Welfare tribute next?" Another tweet followed shortly afterwards which said: "Thank God the athletes have arrived! Now we can move on from leftie multi-cultural c**p. Bring back red arrows, Shakespeare and the Stones!""

How welcoming?

How welcoming is a church?

Most churches have the word welcome on their notice board.. But “Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Community” in the USA has a welcome sign that goes beyond what you would expect. I think they got together and had a brainstorming session to list who Jesus would welcome to his house - Here is what it says:

We extend a special welcome to those who are single, married, divorced, gay, filthy rich, dirt poor, yo no habla Ingles. We extend a special welcome to those who are crying new-borns, skinny as a rail or could afford to lose a few pounds.
We welcome you if you can sing like Andrea Bocelli or like our pastor who can’t carry a note in a bucket. You’re welcome here if you’re “just browsing,” just woke up or just got out of jail. We don’t care if you’re more Catholic than the Pope, or haven’t been in church since little Joey’s Baptism.
We extend a special welcome to those who are over 60 but not grown up yet, and to teenagers who are growing up too fast. We welcome soccer moms, NASCAR dads, starving artists, tree-huggers, latte-sippers, vegetarians, junk-food eaters. We welcome those who are in recovery or still addicted. We welcome you if you’re having problems or you’re down in the dumps or if you don’t like “organized religion,” we’ve been there too.
If you blew all your offering money at the dog track, you’re welcome here. We offer a special welcome to those who think the earth is flat, work too hard, don’t work, can’t spell, or because grandma is in town and wanted to go to church.
We welcome those who are inked, pierced or both. We offer a special welcome to those who could use a prayer right now, had religion shoved down your throat as a kid or got lost in traffic and wound up here by mistake. We welcome tourists, seekers and doubters, bleeding hearts … and you!

(see the hymn "All are welcome"  - "Let us build a house where love can dwell and all can safely live....) 

 Image courtesy of zirconicusso / FreeDigitalPhotos.net