Dan from Nam’ and the accidental time trial

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Dan Craven skipped his post-race massage after the Olympics road race, because he was done racing. He started eating ice cream in the athletes village. He even took a few sips of beer. Then he got a call: A time trial slot has opened up, do you want it?

He didn’t have the right bike, he didn’t have the right gear, he hadn’t trained for the event at all. Anything but last place would be a miracle.

But of course he’d start. He rolled down the ramp on Wednesday on a Cannondale road bike with drop bars, no skinsuit, no disc wheels. He did so because Namibia’s lone male cyclist rides for something bigger than himself.

The first thing you need to know about Craven is that he’s not like most pro bike racers. He’s a smiling, bearded, laid-back counter-balance to the monomaniacal tendencies of elite sport. He is the anti-Sky Death Star, bringing balance to The Force. There was never really any chance he’d turn down racing the Olympic time trial, even if he was destined to come in dead last, even though he didn’t bring a time trial bike or a disc wheel or aero anything.

The second thing you need to know about Craven is he’s from the sparsely populated African nation of Namibia, and the Olympic stage is about more than his own ambitions.

“When I was a kid growing up in Namibia, watching Namibians in the Olympics was like, ‘Wow, we can be there,’” he said. “Okay, yeah, I’m going to come last, but there are going to be some Namibians at …

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