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Were you able to avoid spoilers?One of the most entertaining, visually beautiful, full gas day of racing I've seen in a while.
France was outstanding, they started attacking with 180 km to go and never stopped. Just incredible.
And those crowds... having a WC in Flanders every 4-5 years should be mandatory.
Big problem with the analysis is that van Aert told Stuevens to ride for the win at 20k to go, thus Stuevens was released from all duty to look after his captain, because he effectively assumed the role once van Aert finally admitted he simply did not have the legs.
Yep, except a self inflicted one I pretended I hadn't seen until the very last few kms.Were you able to avoid spoilers?![]()
There was more than a month between the Olympics and the Tour of Britain, so it wasn't exactly a schedule without breaks.Big problem with the analysis is that van Aert told Stuevens to ride for the win at 20k to go, thus Stuevens was released from all duty to look after his captain, because he effectively assumed the role once van Aert finally admitted he simply did not have the legs.
Clearly after the Tour, the Olympics, the Tour of Britain, the World's TimeTrial van Aert was overcooked and lacked the freshness to be a deciding factor, but he should have let his teammates know this before 20k to go. Perhaps that would have spared Evenepoel the fruitless effort from 50k out, which would have allowed the young protege to possibly play better cards for the tream inside 25 to go, perhaps even go with Alaphilippe to the line. By contrast Alaphilippe wisely skipped the Olympics to use the Tour of Britain to fine tune his engine, which clearly at the Worlds was firing on all cylinders. It rather seems that Wout van Aert and the Belgian team director sinned of hubris, by first in presuming that van Aert would maintain his form all the way through World's and second by relogating Evenepoel to donkey duties from 180k out in the most wastefull deployment of talent in modern cycling history.
Sure, but he also rode second in the World's TT...I think one too big of an effort too many. Plus he had a surgery early on.There was more than a month between the Olympics and the Tour of Britain, so it wasn't exactly a schedule without breaks.
I simply rest my case.likely everybody except the winner. Then it becomes a clever strategy
To me, the bit where they did the "please slow down" gesture was all good fun, same with those people who'd written something on the road to "trick" Van Der Poel and... someone else... to go the wrong way. The booing and throwing stuff, otoh; that's *** behaviour!Only let down is the horrible Belgium Fans, they should be ashamed of themselves.
Well he was too good in Britain so how much of a break did he really have?There was more than a month between the Olympics and the Tour of Britain, so it wasn't exactly a schedule without breaks.
If you have 100,000s of people on the side of the roads, you can absolutely expect idiots that actually know little about cycling. It's like at Alpe d'Huez.To me, the bit where they did the "please slow down" gesture was all good fun, same with those people who'd written something on the road to "trick" Van Der Poel and... someone else... to go the wrong way. The booing and throwing stuff, otoh; that's *** behaviour!
Though... didn't seem to slow him down...
Julian Alaphilippe: ‘The Belgian fans asked me to slow down and weren’t very nice - that gave me extra motivation’ | Cycling Weekly
Just makes that kind of behaviour - booing and stuff - even worse. Why do a few idiots have to ruin it for everyone else? I'm sure the vast majority of Belgians fans yesterday could appreciate, and acknowledge that Alaphilippe was just the best yesterday - and that Ganna was the best last Sunday. Which is also why I find the "slow down" gestures quite funny; seems like just a humourous way of asking a rival rider to "Hey, could you maybe not be so good? Give our guy a chance..."If you have 100,000s of people on the side of the roads, you can absolutely expect idiots that actually know little about cycling. It's like at Alpe d'Huez.
That strongest rider rode away specifically because the strongest team in the race made the race as hard as possible against their own best interest. They completely sabotaged themselves, and Alaphilippe winning doesn't change that in the slightest.There seems to be an awful lot of hand wringing and tactical questioning going on about a race in which the clear strongest rider won by simply being the clear strongest rider.
If somebody from the second group, very good riders but outsiders, had won I could understand some tactical finger pointing among teams with top favourites, but this was a very straightforward example of a race where the strongest guy just rode away.
Well said! Just watched the last 30km. JA hugely well deserved. Just immense. To attack repeatedly like that then make it stick and ride solo to the end. Incredibly well deserved and I loved his early celebrations when he knew he had it in the bag. France rode great too. But I was still happy to see Valgren salvage a medal, always seems so strong at the worlds. Pidcock also impressed with a very strong finish.Great race, fantastic winner! What an entertainer this man is.
I feel with you Belgians. The crowds on the streets were incredible, probably not always cycling fans, but it made for a memorable atmosphere even on the tv.As a Belgian, I just finished crying.-
Great race though. Alaphillipe was the best and I'm not sure any tactic, besides having a WVA or MVP 100%, would have been enough to keep him from becoming WC again.
Looking back, you could argue that having remco ride for WVA was a fault. However, the French did the same with Cosnefroy and that seems to be a masterstroke of Voeckler. The winner is always right.
Let's hope it doesn't take another 20 years to have another WC in Belgium.
I think France was the first in hardening the race, as it was in their interested, Belgium bit the bait and Remco is such a great rider in this kind of parcours, all this helped to get to the result we got.That strongest rider rode away specifically because the strongest team in the race made the race as hard as possible against their own best interest. They completely sabotaged themselves, and Alaphilippe winning doesn't change that in the slightest.
Making the race hard wasn’t just Belgium’s decision, but as far as Belgium’s choices go, I don’t think that riding for a 70 man reduced bunch sprint lottery against a field including Caleb Ewan would have been a particularly shrewd use of Belgium’s resources. Wout just isn’t that reliable a sprinter.That strongest rider rode away specifically because the strongest team in the race made the race as hard as possible against their own best interest. They completely sabotaged themselves, and Alaphilippe winning doesn't change that in the slightest.
Ewan isn't enough reason to start putting Evenepoel in breakaways at 180km to go. You can say France made it hard but if Evenepoel doesn't join that group then Cort and Cosnefroy pointlessly swim away their race.Making the race hard wasn’t just Belgium’s decision, but as far as Belgium’s choices go, I don’t think that riding for a 70 man reduced bunch sprint lottery against a field including Caleb Ewan would have been a particularly shrewd use of Belgium’s resources. Wout just isn’t that reliable a sprinter.
They made a reasonable decision that having a real threat up the road plus both WVA and Stuyven in a smaller group finale gave them a higher overall percentage chance of winning. As it happens, Wout didn’t have it and they lost. If they’d managed to make it a 60 rider sprint and lost, there’d be countless people laughing at them for wasting so many other options.