2022 Tour of Scandinavia - Battle of the North, WWT, August 9th to 14th

[Samu Cuenca]

Looks like Fahlin could have come a lot closer with a proper bike throw.

 

[yaco]

That finish from Fahlin came as a bolt out of the blue - Jastrap looks a good sprinting prospect at 20 years of age.

 

[lemon cheese cake]

It doesn't have any connection to the men's Tour of Norway as far as I know.

There were also some issues, because it's a private organiser, and both the Danish stage and the Swedish one are organised by the federations. The Danish federation also had a hard time securing public funds from the local municipalities.

I was referring to the Women's Tour of Norway.

That sounds like quite a logistical challenge having three different organisers for different sections.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

I was referring to the Women's Tour of Norway.

That sounds like quite a logistical challenge having three different organisers for different sections.

Hopefully they'll still be able to grow the race and include more/harder stages next year.
Of course if they want to do Denmark-Sweden-Norway, there's some limitations to what they can do, if Denmark and Sweden only has a stage each.

But they could have an interesting stage in Jutland between Aalborg and Frederikshavn, with more short hills than on the first stage this year, before taking a ferry straight to Göteborg, where they were staying last night, and thus avoiding to spend as much time on busses.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Josie Nelson of Hitec and Elena Pirrone of Valcar have 3.35 to the peloton, which has finally allowed a breakway to get a sizeable gap. There are 62 km to the finish.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

A big crash has split the peloton. The pace has been quite high in the crosswinds, and the gap is less than 2 minutes now.

 

[RedheadDane]

Oyarbide has joined the front duo, making it a trio.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Oyarbide has joined the front duo, making it a trio.

You're kind of a math genius, right?

But now it's a duo again.

 

[RedheadDane]

You're kind of a math genius, right?

Yes!

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Alice Barnes has beenn in fornt for a while, but there have been a lot of attacks behind. DSM is bringing Barnes back now before the final lap.

 

[RedheadDane]

Hattrick to Vos.
Cille second.

 

[Inquitus]

Vos 3 from 3!

 

[Samu Cuenca]

It was another impressive move from Vos to get into position, and then she was obviously the fastest, but Cille made her work for it.

 

[yaco]

Ha Ha Ha - Voss was hopelessly out of position with 800 metres to go, and still won easily.

 

[Axel Hangleck]

Can't the organisers actually have more testing terrain? Three mainly sprint stages in a row......Too many women's stage races are like this.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Can't the organisers actually have more testing terrain? Three mainly sprint stages in a row......Too many women's stage races are like this.

I assume they could make harder stages. The Sarpsborg circuit is alright, but the other flat stages are too easy for anything to happen, unless crosswinds break everything apart.

The Norwegian stages are mainly set in the region of Østfold, which isn't the hilliest part of the country, which is why they are going further north for the MTF at Norefjell. But they have had uphill finishes at the Fredriksten fortress in Halden (1.4 km, 7%) before. Vos would probably also won there, since she's done it twice before, but it would at least create some gaps.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Can't the organisers actually have more testing terrain? Three mainly sprint stages in a row......Too many women's stage races are like this.

Yep, it's been a case where I'm if anything less interested than I was when it was just the Tour of Norway, as all the extension to all of Scandinavia has done is added two pan-flat stages to the start of the race and it's really felt like they're just in a holding pattern waiting for the only decisive stage. It's additional race days and a longer stage race - but it's still far from what the ambition was when the concept was originally drawn up (I know a lot of that isn't the organisers' fault, seeing as there's been that whole global pandemic thing and all) and it's not of great value to add a couple of stages if they don't add anything to the race at all; without a decently hilly stage (like if the Halden stage was the fortress circuit as mentioned by Samu), an ITT or any other distinguishing features outside of the MTF, and without an elite sprinting field to make the flatter stages more competitive or make the likes of Vos want to make the racing harder to rid themselves of the likes of Wiebes and Balsamo, it's basically a women's Tour de Langkawi.

I reserve the right to review this opinion if Uttrup wins the MTF and GC of course.

 

[Danskebjerge]

Yep, it's been a case where I'm if anything less interested than I was when it was just the Tour of Norway, as all the extension to all of Scandinavia has done is added two pan-flat stages to the start of the race and it's really felt like they're just in a holding pattern waiting for the only decisive stage.

Maybe the organizers were afraid that some Benelux riders would take 10 minutes on the peloton early on and remove all suspense. So they have one big uphill finish and that's it.

I believe it's hard to design routes for women's cycling because of the absurdly big differences in quality from the strongest riders to the next. If you give them routes like in the Tour de France this year, a van Vleuten kind of rider will attack from 100 kilometers out and leave us with an even more boring race. They need to find out why certain riders are so dominating - only then will the route design get interesting in women's cycling.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Maybe the organizers were afraid that some Benelux riders would take 10 minutes on the peloton early on and remove all suspense. So they have one big uphill finish and that's it.

I believe it's hard to design routes for women's cycling because of the absurdly big differences in quality from the strongest riders to the next. If you give them routes like in the Tour de France this year, a van Vleuten kind of rider will attack from 100 kilometers out and leave us with an even more boring race. They need to find out why certain riders are so dominating - only then will the route design get interesting in women's cycling.

Sure, you can make races, that won't become interesting, because some riders are better than the rest, but there's defintiely a middle ground between flat stages and stages, where Van Vleuten can win by minutes.

 

[RedheadDane]

Manly takes the win.

 

[TourOfSardinia]

Manly takes the win.

Phew!
not a Vos!

 

[TourOfSardinia]

 

[Samu Cuenca]

There were many atatcks on this stage, but the final one possibly wouldn't have made it without the crash. But well done by Manly.

It looks like Vollering at least finished the stage, but did she lose time?

 

[yaco]

Good win by Manly which caps off an excellent season for Bike Exchange after their disastrous 2021. Vos is still on target to win four stages.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Maybe the organizers were afraid that some Benelux riders would take 10 minutes on the peloton early on and remove all suspense. So they have one big uphill finish and that's it.

I believe it's hard to design routes for women's cycling because of the absurdly big differences in quality from the strongest riders to the next. If you give them routes like in the Tour de France this year, a van Vleuten kind of rider will attack from 100 kilometers out and leave us with an even more boring race. They need to find out why certain riders are so dominating - only then will the route design get interesting in women's cycling.

And how do you propose they find out why certain riders are so dominating without testing out a variety of terrains? Just because van Vleuten is dominant in the mountains doesn't mean that mountain stages can't be interesting if you have reason to follow other riders. Yes, the mountain stages have largely been Unipuerto, but there's also plenty going on in the battle for places, young riders emerging and so on.

Besides, there's only so many race days that Annemiek can do even if she was eight years younger, so there can be plenty of hilly and mountainous races that she isn't at. Just look at races like the Tour de l'Ardêche which have been offering multi-climb mountain stages for years.

One rider being the best at a type of parcours doesn't mean that that type of route should be stopped. There's a complete continuum between pan flat and Zomegnan-porn (besides, Lorena Wiebes tends to be pretty dominant in sprints when she enters, and the more races which are kept artificially close by boring parcours designs mean the more likelihood of major crashes impacting the race).

If we start neutering mountain stages to avoid van Vleuten dominating, then we just revert back to the worst days of the same old problem of every race being on the same flat-to-hilly terrain, and then the only type of riders that develop and become successful are the same type of riders as the ones that came before them, and no specialist climbers or cobbled hardwomen or rouleuses ever get developed because of the paucity of races suited to them, making them an unattractive investment for teams, and so the cycle continues. Besides, wouldn't watching Merckx go out and take 8 minutes when already in the yellow jersey have got pretty boring if we were watching it minute for minute back in the day? Or Coppi to Pinerolo? But these were epic stages revered for the ages, because we weren't watching four hours of the same guy turning pedals while the time gap grew bigger like we can today. Imagine what would have happened to the sport if they decided that Anquetil or Indurain dominating the ITTs meant they should simply stop having them.

We should look past van Vleuten, she may be dominant but she's also 39 years old. We should be looking at the breakout performances this year by specialist climbers who had long hit a ceiling because of their limitations on the typical parcours, like Pauliena Rooijakkers, as a good thing, the development as climbers of the likes of Juliette Labous and Évita Muzic, and the conversion of puncheuse types across to the high mountains over the last couple of years like Silvia Persico, Marta Cavalli and even Demi Vollering, as a good thing. That riders like Niamh Fisher-Black and Neve Bradbury become sought after commodities rather than afterthoughts given the increased variety in parcours. AVV won't be around forever, and besides, it's only this year that she's been completely unopposed because there was AVDB before - and La Course 2018 may have been a two-horse race at the end between two dominant riders, but what an advert for the sport with the tense last few kilometres showdown, attacks over the mountains and the victory stolen in the last few metres?