2020 World Championships - now confirmed for Imola, Italy.

[Libertine Seguros]

Race was OK, as Yaco said though, would have been way better with trade teams, as van Vleuten would have gone after van der Breggen and then they would not have collaborated potentially allowing ELB/Lizzie/Cille back, and then ELB/Lizzie being teammates would have introduced a new dynamic.

Decent phase in the middle, but once Anna was gone she was gone and the race for gold was over. The nature of the course meant that nobody believed in attacking for silver on the penultimate climb, and the latter one was way too late to stand any chances of catching Anna. Once Cille and Lizzie were dropped I think it set the race, because you had two riders in medal position, and then in the group behind only 2 of the 5 could reasonably be expected to work; it was then a 2-on-1 time trial but with ELB being a far better time triallist than either Deignan or Lippert, and Deignan was the only one who really had any justification for working hard in that group, which she dutifully did in fairness, costing her in the sprint where Vos (as predicted) and Lippert (as was an outside chance) then rode away from her in the sprint.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Bizarre sprint from ELB, you'd think she was the one with the broken wrist. Had it easily if she held her line but opened the gate, closed it, opened it again, tried to close it again but let AVV through instead of putting her into the barriers.

This, that was a wacky sprint by her and not exsctly the cleanest move.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Lol, y'all clearly haven't seen Elisa sprint before. Admittedly that's fair enough since she usually sits up because of how poor her sprint is. This was one of the better ones.

 

[gregrowlerson]

Van der Breggen: "A really hard race right from the beginning" ? ? ?

Was this your prediction for what Anna would say, or was my coverage just a little behind yours?!

 

[Red Rick]

Lol, y'all clearly haven't seen Elisa sprint before. Admittedly that's fair enough since she usually sits up because of how poor her sprint is. This was one of the better ones.

Would you believe the Dutch commentators were talking up her sprint as if she was a guaranteed silver medalist?

 

[KZD]

Van der Breggen did an amazing race, dream season for her.
Great to see Van Vleuten still getting the silver with her broken wrist.
Longo Borghini could have been disqualified after that sprint.
Beautiful circuit and quite hard as well, I quite climbers with a big engine will have an advantage.

 

[Izzyeviel]

enjoyable race, scenario stole the show though... apart from the Imola track which looked ugh.

Gotta say, was watching eurosport, the commentary on the female racing just keeps improving. I though they did great today.

 

[Andy262]

That side-on shot of them riding along the ridge is stunning.

Good course, I can see a small bunch sprint tomorrow. Could suit Wout.

Race today was slightly unsatisfactory. Can we have a Netherlands 'B' squad? Could be strong enough to disrupt the 'A' team.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Would you believe the Dutch commentators were talking up her sprint as if she was a guaranteed silver medalist?

Not the Dutch ones, I'd have expected them to have a bit more knowledge than that. Maybe the idiot BlueRoads was quoting from German Eurosport though.

 

[IndianCyclist]

ELB did a Reverse Sagan 2020 on a moderate scale or similar to Sagan 2017

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Van der Breggen did an amazing race, dream season for her.
Great to see Van Vleuten still getting the silver with her broken wrist.
Longo Borghini could have been disqualified after that sprint.
Beautiful circuit and quite hard as well, I quite climbers with a big engine will have an advantage.

In some ways I wish the two climbs were in the opposite order. That could have made the battle for silver much more interesting as there would have been the second climb for Kasia or Cille to make their moves so more incentive for them to collaborate with Lizzie in group 3 (plus the climb was in Liane's range too, she was struggliing a bit near the top of the steeper one). However, the flip side of that would be that it would have meant van der Breggen's move came earlier and killed suspense for the gold sooner.

Now you can see why ELB always sacrifices herself to the attacks to set up Lizzie or tries to win solo. It makes her a very fun rider to follow because she can pretty much never follow wheels to success, but it also means she has far fewer wins than her undoubted talent would suggest she merits.

 

[Dk one]

As per feltet.dk CUL suffered a gear malfunction on the last decent so she was dropped by the chasers, but hey 6 or 8, same same. A shame she didn’t stay away with the select group with AVV, ELB and Deignan.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Per Tim de Vries, if they did what they do at the European Championships and categorised them within the same race, your new U23 World Champion is Liane Lippert, with Niamh Fisher-Black taking silver and Évita Muzic the bronze.

 

[Blanco]

Vleutens palmares is big enough but her ego is even bigger sprinting to 2nd

And why she shouldn't sprint exactly? It's the Worlds, not some charity ride.

 

[Dk one]

As per feltet.dk CUL suffered a gear malfunction on the last decent so she was dropped by the chasers, but hey 6 or 8, same same. A shame she didn’t stay away with the select group with AVV, ELB and Deignan.

To add, there might have been gear problems even before the decent, Danish national coach says Uttrup is upset, hasn’t given interview to Danish tv2.
https://sport.tv2.dk/2020-09-26-cecilie-uttrup-nummer-otte-saadan-forloeb-kvindernes-vm-linjeloeb

 

[Libertine Seguros]

In that case I must subtract points from the race.

 

[Lequack]

Rog and Pog

 

[Breezy1985]

Rog and Pog

Someone needs to get Pog a childs mask

 

[tobydawq]

So, Theo Bos thinks there should have been a DQ. I can't fathom why he of all people would go into such a discussion.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1309873112847179777

View: https://twitter.com/theo_bos/status/1309873112847179777

 

[Ktarie]

Schachmann before the WC:
"It is what it is. The racing calendar has become very tight. It is a kind of experiment to have to perform a week after such a tour. I have already trained on the track and will see how it goes over the weekend. The route suits me. I'm the man for the finals (probably related to his team role). My goal is gold."

He's certainly an outsider with a below average team to support him on this profile, but I appreciate his confidence.

 

[Koronin]

Congrats to Van Der Breggen.
Impressive ride for AvV with the broken wrist.
ELB's sprint was bad. Sprinting 101, stay next to the barrier and make the person behind you come around you. I won't totally fault her for sprinting early, sometimes even the best sprinters manage that one.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

So, Theo Bos thinks there should have been a DQ. I can't fathom why he of all people would go into such a discussion.

Agree that coming from the Big Bos Man, it's a bit of a crazy discussion to set up given his history... and I mean, Elisa lost the sprint anyway and relegation would mean nothing since she was at the back of her group. It's a bit inelegant for sure, and of course it's Annemiek's injured arm that she's catching which increases the discontent about it, although that shouldn't factor into things because Annemiek put herself in that position, it would be the classic judging the outcome not the offence which was so heavily debated a few weeks ago.

But, of course, if she was DQed, the bronze medal would go to the 4th place finisher giving the Dutch a clean sweep of the podium, now would that have factored into your opinions at all, Theo?

 

[LaFlorecita]

So, Theo Bos thinks there should have been a DQ. I can't fathom why he of all people would go into such a discussion.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1309873112847179777

View: https://twitter.com/theo_bos/status/1309873112847179777

I see this argued a lot on social media and forums mostly by Dutch people. I don't think the rules actually allow for a DSQ in such a situation, only a relegation to last place in the group, and of course that wouldn't have mattered. I don't understand why no one seems to realize this? Even when BouBou used to put people into the barriers regularly he was only ever relegated.

 

[Arked]

Yep. I believe Longo Borgini would be relegated to third place if she crossed the line before Van Vleuten. And that's all. Nothing to talk about really

 

[RedheadDane]

Yep. I believe Longo Borgini would be relegated to third place if she crossed the line before Van Vleuten. And that's all. Nothing to talk about really

Maybe some people are forgetting the relegation is always last place, in the group the relegated rider finished in not last place in the entire race.