Scott Martin

Of the 38,000 hours of Olympic television coverage here in the U.S., I missed all 4 minutes of road cycling. Why oh why did I have to use the bathroom during the rain delay of that 3-hour quarterfinal softball game ?

But I'm not here to whine about cycling's TV profile at the 2008 Beijing Games. No, I'm solutions oriented -- I've carefully studied what makes various sports appealing to American network programmers, so that by the 2012 London Games cycling will be poised for blanket coverage. People, we have 4 years to implement these changes:

* Sequins. I'm talking girls' gymnastics here. Sorry -- women's gymnastics, if by women you mean 4-foot-9, 80-pound, 12-year-old Chinese females. Regardless, the tykes' cuteness, amplified by sequins, makeup and shiny uniforms, equals copious airtime. Hey, cyclists already shave their legs and look good in Lycra. Would it kill them to glue a few sparkles on those well-defined cheekbones ?

* Multiple events. Why do I know what Michael Phelps eats for breakfast and the name of his first pet turtle? Because he won more gold medals than I have moldy water bottles. And he stockpiled that hardware because swimming has more events than I have non-matching cycling socks. Sprints, middle distance, long distance, freestyle, butterfly, breast stroke, backstroke, relays, medleys, Marco Polo marathons. Why is road cycling stuck with 1 measly time trial? There should be a 5-mile TT, a 10-miler, a TT relay, a recumbent time trial...

* Beach vibe. Beach volleyball rules primetime, so let's get in on the action. Road biking in the sand might not fly, but why not mountain biking? Just add some singletrack through palm trees, beach balls and crying kids. But what really sells beach volleyball is the skimpy outfits.

Just picture George Hincapie in a tankini.

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