Belgian TTT at CX Worlds

[spalco]

It reminds of Great Britain at the Olympics of London.

Really? May I borrow your crystal ball for a bit possibly?

 

[theyoungest]

I don't get why guys like Boom and Stybar choose to go and be mediocre or at best a 'subtopper' in roadcycling while they could be competing with the best in cyclocross and win championships and so on.

The money? I think Nys makes at least as much as Tom Boonen, if not he's close.

Boom was always more of a road racer on a cross bike, and he was quite successful on the road as well. In cross, Boom could never make as much money as Nys, at least not with a Dutch sponsor.

 

[Echoes]

Koksijde World Cup 2011

1 Sven Nys (Bel) Landbouwkrediet 1:03:18
2 Kevin Pauwels (Bel) Sunweb - Revor 0:00:01 (should have been the other way round but still ...)
3 Bart Aernouts (Bel) Rabobank - Giant Off-Road Team 0:00:06
4 Zdenek Stybar (Cze) Quickstep Cycling Team 0:00:45
5 Tom Meeusen (Bel) Telenet - Fidea 0:00:51
6 Klaas Vantornout (Bel) Sunweb - Revor 0:00:57
7 Francis Mourey (Fra) FDJ 0:01:08
8 Bart Wellens (Bel) Telenet - Fidea 0:01:32
9 Sven Vanthourenhout (Bel) Landbouwkrediet 0:02:00
10 Nicolas Bazin (Fra) Big Mat - Auber 93 0:02:34

Compare with Igorre World Cup

1 Kevin Pauwels (Bel) Sunweb-Revor 1:02:31
2 Sven Nys (Bel) Landbouwkrediet 0:00:45
3 Tom Meeusen (Bel) Telenet-Fidea 0:00:59
4 Bart Aernouts (Bel) Rabobank-Giant Off-Road Team 0:01:06
5 Zdenek Stybar (Cze) Quickstep Cycling Team 0:01:26
6 Francis Mourey (Fra) FDJ 0:01:31
7 Radomir Simunek (Cze) BKCP-Powerplus 0:01:33
8 Dieter Vanthourenhout (Bel) BKCP-Powerplus 0:01:34
9 Enrico Franzoi (Ita) Selle Italia Guerciotti 0:01:35
10 Steve Chainel (Fra) FDJ



Belgians are obviously favoured by sand !!

Koksijde 1994 (Worlds) at a time Belgians sucked

1 Paul Herijgers BEL
2 Richard Groenendaal NED
3 Erwin Vervecken BEL
4 Daniele Pontoni ITA
5 Adri van der Poel NED
6 Cyrille Bonnand FRA
7 Thomas Frischknecht SCH
8 Marc Janssens BEL
9 Radomir Simunek sr CZE
10 Danny De Bie BEL

Worlds 1995 in Eschenbach, Switzerland

1 Dieter Runkel SCH
2 Richard Groenendaal NED
3 Beat Wabel SCH
4 Adri van der Poel NED
5 Roger Honegger SCH
6 Peter Van Santvliet BEL
7 Dominique Arnould FRA
8 Jan Östergaard DEN
9 Daniele Pontoni ITA
10 Émmanuel Magnien FRA



The sand IS specific for damn sake. If youngsters can't figure that out, how can any serious discussion be possible ????

 

[lilac harry quinn]

So? There's no interest for korfbal in Holland either

I thought that if I ever posted any Half Man half Biscuit lyrics in this forum it would be from 'On the 'roids' or maybe "I'm only ever twenty eight away with a tailwind, I'm on Shimano Ultegra now aint you heard." But your post has made me doubt the accuracy of this:

"Can you hear the bells a ringing Alice van der Meer?
Are you wondering what the hue and cry's about my dear?
Hurry now and run along to the Public Square,
Break off from grouting Willy,
Lay down your puzzle Jan,
Korfball's coming to town,
In your diary write it down,
Roll on October, hip hip hooray,
Joy in Leeuwarden for sure."

 

[maltiv]

I don't get why guys like Boom and Stybar choose to go and be mediocre or at best a 'subtopper' in roadcycling while they could be competing with the best in cyclocross and win championships and so on.

The money? I think Nys makes at least as much as Tom Boonen, if not he's close.

It's no fun to practice a sport that gets no attention in one's home country. "What, is that some kind of sport?" is not the answer you want to get when you say you're a world champion in cx, for example

 

[Cloxxki]

It's no fun to practice a sport that gets no attention in one's home country. "What, is that some kind of sport?" is not the answer you want to get when you say you're a world champion in cx, for example

Tell that to Justyna Kolwaczyk, or Darya Domracheva.

Boom perhaps didn't feel like taking on the responsibility (burden) of raising the level and popularity of the sport in his home country. Or, sincerely, didn't feel very challenged. Some just keep on winning, he went to a generally perceived as higher discipline to take his chances.
I believe I witnessed Boom getting a Dutch National gold in MTB'ing in Groesbeek once. Not sure he was into road at that time.
I am not sure how Boom would have fared in Koksijde. It is very Belgian-specific. That said, Marianne Vos actually got through the X-Dune section on the first lap cleanly. I just watched the torrent. And make a note that see seemed a bit flat for her style.

 

[DirtyWorks]

Belgium has always been the primary CX nation, but it was mountainbike becomming an Olympic sport that really killed any international attention for the sport. Just look at the list of world champion from the early nineties, and what happened at the end of that decade. A huge shift. Most of the talented guys from other nations go to the road (Boom, Franzoi, Gadret, maybe Stybar as well).

Mountain biking is treated as a development path for the road. It has been that way for a long time. Cross is too.
IMHO some money was actually being made in the 90's with the road discipline and has continued on more or less to today. It sucks all the pros willing to try it out of the less popular cycling disciplines where relatively little money is available to most riders.

Doping allegations in the Belgian team go back quite a way: http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/dutch-doctor-accuses-belgians-of-doping

Count me in with the others who say the 2012 WC course suited the Belgians.

 

[cprior]

So far I found that on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUpwT91JRTg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GwK7-_uOoo

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Tell that to Justyna Kolwaczyk, or Darya Domracheva.

Boom perhaps didn't feel like taking on the responsibility (burden) of raising the level and popularity of the sport in his home country. Or, sincerely, didn't feel very challenged. Some just keep on winning, he went to a generally perceived as higher discipline to take his chances.
I believe I witnessed Boom getting a Dutch National gold in MTB'ing in Groesbeek once. Not sure he was into road at that time.
I am not sure how Boom would have fared in Koksijde. It is very Belgian-specific. That said, Marianne Vos actually got through the X-Dune section on the first lap cleanly. I just watched the torrent. And make a note that see seemed a bit flat for her style.

Considering that it was very Belgian-specific, the Dutch of course won 3 of the 4 races on the weekend. In the Juniors, you had a TTT of Dutch guys (and Jauregui) who somehow for reasons beknownst to no-one decided to slow down and let Van der Poel back into the group after shelling him; he was so strong at the end of the race he may have come back anyway, but they did make it easy for him. The U23s was a really exciting race with a Dutch MTBer coming from nowhere to the podium, and a great battle between the hitherto dominant Van der Haar and the Belgian Bosmans, who the course was better suited to. The women's race ran pretty much to form, with Vos out front, and Daphny winning the race for 2nd. Cant seemed happy enough with 3rd.

The elite men, well, this is a Belgian sport. It was front page news all over Belgium. A home World Championships on a course suited to the riders in a sport you already dominate? The extent of the domination may be surprising, but the domination should not be. Especially bearing in mind Albert got his gap on lap 1 thanks partly to Mourey leading around and getting all kinds of stuck early on; Stybar has fallen ill since the Worlds so there's a good chance he'd caught something beforehand. I think somebody else (I think a Dutchman) was slow in one of the lines on the sand in lap 1 and held a lot of people up; once the Belgians were away with only a couple of interlopers they weren't going to be brought back. And with Stybar off form and falling away, we're left with Simunek, and is it really a shock to see those guys drop Simunek? The one surprise was Rob Peeters perhaps, but he was absolutely the strongest guy in the recon on the first day of the event, powering over that first sand stretch faster and with more power than anybody (though many of the others such as Albert were testing out different lines much of the time).

 

[Cloxxki]

Well, Compton could come from dead last to at one point 2nd in the ladies', and that Dutch MTB's -23 even made the podium. So decent pro crossers, even those not born in Belgium did have some sort of a chance, you'd say. Many of them live for cross.
The domination was indeed expected. Hey, they lined up all 7 at the front of the grid. It's just worse than in the point seasons thusfar. Silly really.
The other nations might as well quit, or let themselves be paid by the UCI for playing gridfill.

That the women lap so much slower than the men (we're taking Marianne Vos here) does show it's a strength course, if not sport. Vos has pretty much the same right to have the X-dune be named after her as does Albert. Sole woman I noticed to get through it riding without using the barriers. Just way slower, by lack of strength.
We know that when it comes to speed, women usually lose like 10-13% in time. When it's all about explosiveness and height gain, 20-30%.
What's odd about crossers, if that they are explosive all the time. the short corners are the recovery. When I rode cross, if just didn't make sense of me. My legs were tiring just as in crits. I was pretty good on flat or short-steep winding MTB courses, but cross just got to me. The muddy trails became one long sow push, the rolly trails were like a crit, less the slowdowns or slipstream of the pack.

 

[Zam_Olyas]

Did Wellens and two other riders dope the day before Belgian nationals?

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/did...-riders-dope-the-day-before-belgian-nationals

 

[DirtyWorks]

Well, Compton could come from dead last to at one point 2nd in the ladies',

Compton has won at Koksijde before. Hopes were very high as a result. This World Championship race must have felt really bitter to her and her team.

The problem with comparing the gender's races is Women's racing isn't as deep as the Men's. The hard part is the fact that Women's fields aren't as deep as men's I don't know that a midfield doper could make the same leap as an also-ran to podium like the much deeper men's field. And then there's the money women don't make at 'cross. I don't know how a mid-field 'crosser could afford a doping program.

It's all a bunch of guesses with a slim chance of describing what actually happened. It's frustrating there isn't a legitimate anti-doping program.