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2020 World Championships - now confirmed for Imola, Italy.

Page 78 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
If you bring it back Wout probably wins and maybe Ala takes second if he's not shattered.
If you don't bring it back Ala definitely wins and Wout takes second .

At least if you do bring it back there's a chance of getting the jump on people while WVA and Ala look at each other or something.
They did try to ride until 3km to go. Even brought it back to under ten seconds. But, i think they clocked that if they did ride then they’d get him in the last km, at which point WvA just follows all and wins. To do the ‘jump’, they needed 5km or at least 3km together, which was tough since descent was until 6km or whatever.
 
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You'd make a great DS. No use riding for 5% chance to win, when we can chose not to ride and be 100% sure we won't win.

They've no radio tbf so no DS. Now, if I'm the rider do I want to bury myself to tow WVA up, and have no shot in the sprint. Or take it easy and see does it come back together due to the others working hard or an Ala mechanical or crash, and then when it does have my legs saved for an attack, I'm taking option 2. Also, will have strong legs in the sprint for 3rd if it doesn't come back.

Like for Fuglsang there, he's probably the worst sprinter but on the climb had the best legs other than Ala. If I'm him, I don't work hard. I'm not winn any sprint and if it's all 6, not getting in the top 3
 
Roglic was cooked, he almost got dropped when Wout accelerated on that small uphill drag just before entering the circuit. He couldn't have helped his best domestique durning the chase, even if he wanted.
Pogi wanting to support Roglic was probably the wrong call, but what can you do?

Pogačar apparently said during the race that he wasn't feeling too good, so they have decided he will go on the attack and force others to chase. Rogla did what he could, but 260km races never were his thing.
 
You'd make a great DS. No use riding for 5% chance to win, when we can chose not to ride and be 100% sure we won't win.
The key issue was that the descent ended with 6km to go, at which point Alaphilippe had 15 or 16 seconds (you can’t work in the descent really). Really, the riders only had a chance if they brought Ala back 3km from the finish, because then the chance to surprise and play games is basically gone, and WvA smokes you. Taking back 4s/km would have been quite the ride - possible, but really tough, especially with Ala moto-hogging a bit. Realistically, if they rode TTT then they were getting him back with 2km at most to go, basically setting the race up for van Aert. If there were 10km from the descent to the line, then I’d agree silly not to work full on, but today it made sense.

Plus, I do think they did try until the circuit then gave up.
 
Would have been interesting to see if Pogacar could have gone with Ala, if he had saved his attack until a lap later. With hindsight, Slovenia probably sacrificed the wrong guy.

Although you're sometimes an over-eager Pogi-fan, I agree with you here. But anyway, I don't think Pogacar would have won this in this constellation if he had been in Roglic's place.
I think Pogacar was really eager to give Roglic something, after the defeat?
 
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Van Aert sprint at the end proving why the chase group not working with him to catch Alaphillipe was 100% the right call.

He was riding for silver as soon as he decided not to try to chase him down on his own. Perhaps he couldn't...

Pogacar made the race on the penultimate lap, but given how little Roglic featured it's a shame he wasn't in a position to attack at the bottom of the final climb.
 
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Pogačar apparently said during the race that he wasn't feeling too good, so they have decided he will go on the attack and force others to chase. Rogla did what he could, but 260km races never were his thing.
Yes, I also don't seen Roglic as the guy who's at his best if it turns into a war of attrition and the race is +250km long.
FW on the other hand could be a good race for him.
One has to wonder what would have happened if Wout and Dumoulin saved themself for the RR.
 
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