2021 World Championships in Flanders: Road Races

[BlueRoads]

Big fail by the Dutch. They should have either gone for serious attacks or not let Brand do all the work earlier...

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Elisa to Elisa, tag team perfection!

Brilliant win for Balsamo, maybe now finally people will start to talk about her to the degree she deserves, she has been racking up a great palmarès the last few years, she has been pushing Wiebes continually and beats her not infrequently. This was actually a lot like 2010, no? A 20-30 strong group sprinting out and an Italian sprinter who'd hidden out coming out and being the best at the end. It was absolutely the kind of win Giorgia Bronzini used to take, and Italy have never really replaced Giorgia... until now.

 

[TourOfSardinia]

Italy again.

Just one more RR and Davide Cassani leaves satisfied!

 

[sir fly]

Chapeau to Balsamo and Longo Borghini.
Well done.

No big road gold for the Dutch this year.
A couple of years ago Vos would nick this.

Entertaining race.

 

[Tim Cahill]

Italian sport is on quite the roll at the moment

 

[jsem94]

Took Swedish broadcasting like 15 seconds to figure out that it was actually Balsamo who crossed the finish line first. National broadcaster SVT has the rights to the WC only, anything else is usually on Eurosport with competent commentators.

Vos should have had this. Obviously didn't have the legs, but it was on a silver platter for her.

 

[IndianCyclist]

Dutch do it again... erm i mean lose

 

[Izzyeviel]

Good race despite the bunch sprint finale.

 

[Danskebjerge]

Good sprint by Team Suzuki.

 

[Põhja Konn]

Damn, I was basically certain of getting a nice point in prediction game when Vos was perfectly placed in Balsamo's wheel coming into the sprint. Should have learned to not bet against Italians this year by now.

 

[SafeBet]

I'm speechless. I thought they riding completely wrong the whole race. But the Italian team was simply perfect and the last km was a masterpiece. Elisa Balsamo is World Champion, can't believe it.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Niewiadoma beating Vas on the line for 3rd!

It's amazing after all she's done before. Strongest rider today by a lot.

Definitely. She'll be kicking herself that she had those legs on a course like this that just wasn't selective enough for her to get the gap. Getting the bronze from the sprint here, however, is pretty remarkable given the names that were still in that group and what Kasia's sprinting has historically been like. Has she Anna van der Breggened her sprinting up to "alrightish"?

 

[Breezy1985]

Big fail by the Dutch. They should have either gone for serious attacks or not let Brand do all the work earlier...

Previously seemed to have a million strong leaders but this time had all the doms and no leader but hey silver is no fail really

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Chapeau to Balsamo and Longo Borghini.
Well done.

No big road gold for the Dutch this year.
A couple of years ago Vos would nick this.

Entertaining race.

Confalonieri was the real MVP. I certainly didn't expect to see her closing down attacks uphill.

 

[limak_]

Big fail by the Dutch. They should have either gone for serious attacks or not let Brand do all the work earlier...

Agree, every time there was a Dutch rider in the small group at the front with a gap, they were also pushing the tempo in front of the group behind which was ridiculous. Or I'm just not used to watching women's races that much..

 

[TourOfSardinia]

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Big fail by the Dutch. They should have either gone for serious attacks or not let Brand do all the work earlier...

They tried to put pressure on the other teams while saving Vos for the sprint. They actually did everything mostly right, but in the end the Italian team was just too strong, and Vos couldn't quite match Balsamo.

 

[JosefK]

If you play for a sprint finale when you think you've got the best rider for a sprint, but other sprinters are present, it can become a crap shoot.

 

[KZD]

Dutch women missing gold in big Championships after the Olympics, their team tactics were bad again.

Italy has been incredible in this Championships and Balsamo was a worthy winner today. Great bronze race for Niewiedoma too.

 

[Red Rick]

Italian sport is on quite the roll at the moment

cries in Nibali

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Yikes, so who to make rider of the day is pretty tough.

Balsamo hid herself and lasted out brilliantly to earn the right to sprint for the win and of course she is now the World Champion and the de facto rider of the day for obvious reasons.

Niewiadoma was the strongest rider on the day, forced the moves that thinned the group out, created gaps on the climbs on three occasions in the last two laps and somehow managed to win a medal despite it ending in a sprint.

Vas had a jaw-dropping World Championships, riding solo and being consistently competitive all the way to the end, and featuring in key moves which considering her lack of experience at this level and that I can't trace she's ever done a race this long before is pretty incredible and she will be a star in the coming years for sure.

Would also like to give a shout out to Vollering making the top 10 after all of her earlier disasters and a fair amount of work done, to Anna Henderson for her neverending tank of gas, in coming years if she learns better how to dose those efforts and not expend too much she would probably be deadly in this kind of parcours, and Elisa Longo Borghini for playing the teammate role to perfection at the end despite having made so many efforts previously and covered so many moves and being so good at providing a leadout despite the fact that sprinting is... I like Elisa so I'll be kind and say "not a strength".

 

[Mayomaniac]

That leadout by ELB was the most explosive move of her entire career, a massive pull that gapped most of the other riders.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Dutch women missing gold in big Championships after the Olympics, their team tactics were bad again.

Ellen van Dijk says hello

 

[limak_]

Definitely. She'll be kicking herself that she had those legs on a course like this that just wasn't selective enough for her to get the gap. Getting the bronze from the sprint here, however, is pretty remarkable given the names that were still in that group and what Kasia's sprinting has historically been like. Has she Anna van der Breggened her sprinting up to "alrightish"?

Also notice that she made a mistake in the final meters, going right and following one of the Dutch wheels instead of choosing the one of Borghini's and as a result she was in the wind way before the finish and had to chase those 3. That'd probably not change the final result, buuut who knows.. she was sprinting 2x times longer than Vos and still got 3rd.

 

[Red Rick]

By the way is this the 6th time that Vos is 2nd behind an Italian?

I think pineapples will be thrown on pizzas tonight