2025 EC: Thread for all the women's races + Mixed Relay

[Armchair Cyclist]

Men's event:
1st Italy
2nd France
3rd Switzerland

Women's event:
1st France
2nd Italy
3rd Germany



The aggregate of unrelated efforts by different people is utterly meaningless at the level of elite sport.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

The Italian women couldn't keep up with the French trio. Another bronze medal for Switzerland.

 

[RedheadDane]

Men's event:
1st Italy
2nd France
3rd Switzerland

Women's event:
1st France
2nd Italy
3rd Germany

If it was separate events, wouldn't it have been 6 riders on each team? Could have changed things a bit...
But since the organisers want a relay, we're getting a relay.

 

[YavorD]

I don't see it as being certain it'll be the case.

2km was figuratively speaking. It can be 800meters or 8 kilometers, but it's inevitable.
You can't have a mixed event with men and women starting in the same time.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

If it was separate events, wouldn't it have been 6 riders on each team? Could have changed things a bit...
But since the organisers want a relay, we're getting a relay.

That would be a choice the organisers could have made whether on not it is a relay.

The medals of the French junior women, Polish junior men, and Swiss senior women are as deserved as the claim of Rasmus Hojgaard (played two, lost two) to be a Ryder Cup winner at the weekend.

 

[RedheadDane]

The medals of the French junior women, Polish junior men, and Swiss senior women are as deserved as the claim of Rasmus Hojgaard (played two, lost two) to be a Ryder Cup winner at the weekend.

In the relay events in atletics, would you also a person didn't deserve their medal if they were pretty late in handing over the baton, but a later runner went and did a... [that Dutch woman from the Olympics]?

Or is your issue with the event that - like in the luge - there's no actual baton handover?

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

In the relay events in atletics, would you also a person didn't deserve their medal if they were pretty late in handing over the baton, but a later runner went and did a... [that Dutch woman from the Olympics]?

Or is your issue with the event that - like in the luge - there's no actual baton handover?

I would suggest that the 4x100m, where the baton handover is a significant skill, is probably sportingly valid: some meaningful, practised co-ordination is fundamental to success.

The 4x400m requires little to no specialisation at the point of handover (although some teams did manage to make a mess of it in the WC the other week), so are effectively just aggregated independent efforts.

 

[Brullnux]

The aggregate of unrelated efforts by different people is utterly meaningless at the level of elite sport.

?

I have tried to wrap my head around what you are trying to say here and I am struggling. How are they 'unrelated' if they are put on together within the same race? Surely just through that mechanism they have become related: their efforts are considered as one, as a team.

Are you just against the existence of relays? Are you aware they have existed for as long as elite sports have? This seems to me to be both a weird and very lonely battle

 

[search]

I don't think the format is ideal, but somehow (unless dropped at the start) everyone contributes to the result at least.

There are far worse examples out there, where under the right circumstances, everyone of us could become Olympic Champion, despite never having practiced the sport before. This is usually not the case here, or also in athletics.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

?

Not sure what you are questioning here. Do you think that the Swiss women made an independent effort that was better than that of the German women?

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

In what way is this better than having separate men's and women's TTT events?

How is the reward for the performance each contingent made more just by the present arrangement? Or is just reward for performance not considered a sporting criterion anymore?

 

[Brullnux]

Not sure what you are questioning here. Do you think that the Swiss women made an independent effort that was better than that of the German women?

I am questioning your entire logic, yes. Are you actually contrary to relays in all forms?

The point of them is to test a country's (or a team's) strength in depth. They operate under a different logic to purely individual events. That's fine.

 

[Brullnux]

In what way is this better than having separate men's and women's TTT events?

How is the reward for the performance each contingent made more just by the present arrangement? Or is just reward for performance not considered a sporting criterion anymore?

It isn't, but it's clearly financially motivated.

But to say that the logic of relays runs contrary to 'just reward' is very strange

 

[Netserk]

By now, I've come to prefer a return to the old format of a TTT instead of the ITT. 4 riders per team, 100 km, men and women in seperate competitions.

 

[Brullnux]

I am actually quite a big TTT defender and I wish it were included in the world championship and olympic calendar as a standalone event.

That said, I just don't buy that relays are antithetical to elite sport – I think that is necessarily untrue given they have existed as long as elite sport has. They are only new to cycling.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

But to say that the logic of relays runs contrary to 'just reward' is very strange

You might think that: I don't. I think it is fundamentally unjust that the best men's junior TTT effort in a championship, as measured against their peers, receive no medal at all. You haven't attempted to say why that is just.

I don't believe that the 5th best women's TTT outfit deserve silver medals: I don't think you are going to change my mind on that, but you are free to try to.

(and although this is a reply to Brullnux's post, I don't mean this as a response, or a challenge, uniquely to him)

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

That said, I just don't buy that relays are antithetical to elite sport – I think that is necessarily untrue given they have existed as long as elite sport has. They are only new to cycling.

I don't know what historically confident knowledge you bring to that: I'll freely admit that mine is based on guesswork.

In athletics, any club, or school, or college, might have several people who would want to represent the team, and so the idea emerged, for the good of the social integrity of each club (Or school or college, I'll stop repeating that bit now), of having several runners represent it, in a relay. These are people who are together all year, who train and socialise in each other's company. It adds a cohesive effort to consolidate the group. It is a highly beneficial and deeply relevant discipline at that level.

As athletics expanded and inter-regional, or even international, meets started, the discipline, because it was on the schedule of club meets, was retained. But it ceased to have any meaningful cohesive element except in the sprint relays, where mutual understanding and adjustment to what each other are doing is relevant, it was just a throwback to the origins of competition.

The same is true of golf: I don't play, but both my brothers are keen. At any club, there is a strong social element, and a real cachet in representing the club in a match. A match against another club might consist of four or six independent matches being played, and because of the social element, there is more attention paid to the total result than the constituent games. And I know that the same is true of various racquet, and probably other, sports as well.

But divorced from that social origin, it is at best a weak imitation of those origins, and at worst a jingoistic supremecist exercise.

In the case of mixed TTT cycling relay, I would say neither of those extremes, just a meaningless aggregation, no more significant than some sort of totalling up of the men's and women's six nations rugby matches.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

The U23 race will take place tomorrow morning followed by the junior race in the afternoon.

We've got a strong Dutch team in the U22 race here and Ciabocco has been blessed with teammates as well. With Bunel riding among the elites instead it should be harder for Gery to win, but unless she's dropped for good on Saint-Romain-de-Lerps she's still very much in with a shot of adding another championship jersey to her collection.

Paula Ostiz hopes to win the double this week and headlines a strong Spanish squad for the junior race, where Anja Grossmann may once again prove to be her biggest rival. The field also includes some interesting names we didn't see at Worlds like Matilde Rossignoli, who surprisingly won Bizkaikoloreak in August, Celia Torres, Pablo's younger sister, who finished third in that race, Maruša Šerkezi and Daniela Hezinová.

 

[Brullnux]

I don't know what historically confident knowledge you bring to that: I'll freely admit that mine is based on guesswork.

In athletics, any club, or school, or college, might have several people who would want to represent the team, and so the idea emerged, for the good of the social integrity of each club (Or school or college, I'll stop repeating that bit now), of having several runners represent it, in a relay. These are people who are together all year, who train and socialise in each other's company. It adds a cohesive effort to consolidate the group. It is a highly beneficial and deeply relevant discipline at that level.

As athletics expanded and inter-regional, or even international, meets started, the discipline, because it was on the schedule of club meets, was retained. But it ceased to have any meaningful cohesive element except in the sprint relays, where mutual understanding and adjustment to what each other are doing is relevant, it was just a throwback to the origins of competition.

The same is true of golf: I don't play, but both my brothers are keen. At any club, there is a strong social element, and a real cachet in representing the club in a match. A match against another club might consist of four or six independent matches being played, and because of the social element, there is more attention paid to the total result than the constituent games. And I know that the same is true of various racquet, and probably other, sports as well.

But divorced from that social origin, it is at best a weak imitation of those origins, and at worst a jingoistic supremecist exercise.

In the case of mixed TTT cycling relay, I would say neither of those extremes, just a meaningless aggregation, no more significant than some sort of totalling up of the men's and women's six nations rugby matches.

Relays in athletics have existed since around 1890, with a likely apocryphal origin tale of replicating the tasks of ancient messengers. Its modern origins are from when athletics teams and clubs raced them, not as social events, but as a way to test the overall strength of the club. In effect, switching the focus from outlier efforts to how well you can coach a 'team' of athletes. You win as a club, not as an individual, and you are judged as a club. This is why it isn't an 'unrelated' effort: it should be seen as a collective effort of how quickly can this team get run 400m. It was in the Olympics by 1908 and has stayed ever since – it is no more jingoistic than any other team or collective effort. The same goes for swimming, which had a relay in the Olymplics by 1912 – i.e., when elite sports began to be standardised at an international level.

You might think that: I don't. I think it is fundamentally unjust that the best men's junior TTT effort in a championship, as measured against their peers, receive no medal at all. You haven't attempted to say why that is just.

I don't believe that the 5th best women's TTT outfit deserve silver medals: I don't think you are going to change my mind on that, but you are free to try to.

It is just because the competition is not judging the men's and women's separately. The question the competition asks is: which country is able to make their way across this course quickest, and who has the strongest coaching set-up among junior cyclists? It is both a test of individual strength and of collective strength. To be frank, I would prefer separate gendered TTTs with a proper sized team, but I don't think it the situation you have described is unjust because it is simply measuring a different thing to what you would like it to. It is not the individuals themselves who win it, but the club/team (made up of individuals). That is what it is testing.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

But there is no club with one training system, so your argument is fundamentally flawed.

But all that is academic and irrelevant. What is the better way of establishing and rewarding national team time trial squads; specific separate events, or aggregated scores?

If they wanted to give out additional medals on te basis of a total score, I would consider that to be of lower merit but not objectionable. But if I were a member of the UCI, I could not defend the fact that Lithuanian junior women are not celebrating bronze medals this morning.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

What we know about the U23 race is that Linda Riedmann and Solène Muller broke away on the second lap, that Riedmann then dropped Muller somewhere on the long lap across Saint-Romain-de-Lerps, the she was caught on the last lap, and that Blasi ended up riding away from Ciabocco, Bego and Chladoňová towards the finish.

Interesting fact about Muller is that she similar to Blasi has a history in athletics, but as a steeplechaser rather than a regular runner.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

I notice the French kits in these Euros, and in the Worlds, are 'personalised' with the riders' own teams. A device to get the trade teams to contribute to costs? Or a grateful nod to those that support them for the rest of the year? Or simply using up space in the face of failure to get a national team sponsor (or at least only considering CIC's contribution sufficient to earn a sleeve patch)?

 

[Top Climber]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1974102376421478427

View: https://x.com/Cyclingnewsfeed/status/1974102376421478427

 

[Samu Cuenca]

The 3rd of October should be known as National Paula Day in Spain from now on.

 

[Brullnux]

But there is no club with one training system, so your argument is fundamentally flawed.

But all that is academic and irrelevant. What is the better way of establishing and rewarding national team time trial squads; specific separate events, or aggregated scores?

If they wanted to give out additional medals on te basis of a total score, I would consider that to be of lower merit but not objectionable. But if I were a member of the UCI, I could not defend the fact that Lithuanian junior women are not celebrating bronze medals this morning.

I don't think it matters at all that clubs don't have one training system, it is still about collective strength of a specified group in a single point to point race. That is all that it is measuring, and it is entirely justifiable (which is why the format has run for over a century without any objection).

It isn't all 'academic and irrelevant', because the thrust of your first post was that 'aggregate efforts' (i.e. relays) don't have a place in elite sport. Which is not a point that I think bears a) historical scrutiny, or b) logical scrutiny. It is absolutely justifiable for otherwise individual sports to have a race which centres collective strength. Like I said, I'd prefer separate TTTs, but that isn't what you said to begin with. Your issue was with the entire concept of relays.

Re justifying it to the Lithunian juniors, it's quite easy. The event you entered wasn't rewarding women's TTTs but men and women's TTTs combined. The reason that this is different to aggregate scores is because it is one combined effort, that cannot be divorced from each other. Like in a 4 x 100m, the performance of a specific athlete (or TT team) is directly linked to the position that the prior athlete put them in. If you are ahead, you may go faster from the adrenaline or slower to pace yourself and not take risk; if you are behind, then vice versa. Since the efforts are so conditioned by what has come before (and what may come after) it is just logically incorrect to see them as 'unrelated efforts'. They are one and the same.