European Championships 2023: Road Races (September 22-24)

[roundabout]

How can WVA lose this type of races?

It was probably 12-13 seconds gap for Laporte at 1km to go. It was an insane effort to catch him so no wonder Van Aert did not have anything left in the end.

 

[Red Rick]

Yes. Either De Lie was stronger, or Van Aert gifted this to Laporte. In both cases, that should disqualify you from doing the sprints instead of De Lie.

It looked to me like Van Aert just blew up and couldn't sustain his sprint.

 

[Ilmaestro99]

Laporte is a great modern classics rider. Good sprint, good engine, good racing instinct. I don't like jumbo riders doing this but I quite like laporte. And he proved he's better than WVA again

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

If Wout had taken the long pull in the last km with De Lie in his wheel I think Belgium wouldve won the gold.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

A couple more 1-2-3s and it's time to step up my plans to slip some EPO syringes into random Jumbo riders' suitcases. We have over 10 months until the Hessmann cooldown period ends...

 

[waku waku]

Poor De Lie... Incredible how they keep trusting in someone that can't win big races.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

It looked to me like Van Aert just blew up and couldn't sustain his sprint.

I think so too, but that isn't much of an argument for him continuing to lead Belgium on these kinds of parcours. Especially when De Lie will only get better from here, and when Philipsen puts more and more focus on the classics.

 

[tobydawq]

It was probably 12-13 seconds gap for Laporte at 1km to go. It was an insane effort to catch him so no wonder Van Aert did not have anything left in the end.

Exactly. It was a monstrous effort by De Lie, and having to follow that will sap everyone's legs.

I don't necessarily think that De Lie would have won if he and Wout had switched roles.

 

[johnymax]

Laporte said in the post race interview that from next season he'll start gifting races to Van Aert.

 

[yaco]

Belgium stuffed up that last 20kms - If you are going for VWA in the final, then DeLie should have spent more time at the front of the chase group as VWA did too much work.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Laporte is a great modern classics rider. Good sprint, good engine, good racing instinct. I don't like jumbo riders doing this but I quite like laporte. And he proved he's better than WVA again

Mighty Wout is preparing for his Tour assault next year (as a co-leader with Skeletor) so understandably he'll lack a bit in sprints from now on...

 

[Lequack]

Remco could've won this easily in his current form. But then he wouldn't be able to weat the Belgian national jersey.

 

[KOM]

Theres gonna be a sports history book written in a few years: "The 1000s of 2nd Places of W. van Aert and how he managed to not win against all odds"

 

[Red Rick]

I think so too, but that isn't much of an argument for him continuing to lead Belgium on these kinds of parcours. Especially when De Lie will only get better from here.

Well it's not like he got beaten in the sprint from his own group. Laporte benefitted a huge amount from the moto draft, the short bit of recovery and the technicality of the final km.

And De Lie is not the guy who's wheel I wanna be on through some narrow descending corners.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Well it's not like he got beaten in the sprint from his own group. Laporte benefitted a huge amount from the moto draft, the short bit of recovery and the technicality of the final km.

And De Lie is not the guy who's wheel I wanna be on through some narrow descending corners.

But if De Lie is doing the sprint, then Van Aert doesn't need to be on his wheel in the first place...

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

Poor De Lie... Incredible how they keep trusting in someone that can't win big races.

This wasn't a big race, though...

 

[The Clogger]

De Lie started skipping pulls a bit early, seems like Belgium didn't agree on who to ride for before the very last 2 km

 

[Libertine Seguros]

this weekend really showed that pro cycling is not in a good state.

The Premier Leagueification continues.

But people will continue to criticise plans that try to increase competitiveness because the top teams will always vote against them, and lesser WT teams who currently have guarantees that would lose those guarantees will always vote against them, and the wildcard teams will continue to get poorer until they are total irrelevances (calling them wildcards when the UCI forces people to invite Lotto and Israel because they were too weak to stand up to Sylvain Adams' legal team essentially giving us a 20-team WT, not 18) and they can block wildcards entirely and turn it into a travelling circus, then eventually to turn the profit they can just turn it into F1 and sell the rounds of the WT to the highest bidders.

The teams that are currently the mid- and lower-tier WT teams will become increasingly impoverished because of not getting any winnings because of all the top results being bogarted by the small number of teams like Jumbo, UAE and co., and eventually it narrows down until those teams are as irrelevant to the WT results sheet as the likes of Burgos-BH, Black Spoke and Bingoal are now. National scenes will be hurt, unless they can be used just as point farms like Lotto using the flat to rolling Belgian and northern French one-dayers to farm points with de Lie rather than test him out at the higher level as he'd clearly earned last season.

Hopefully they can sustain a better level of equality than in a lot of sports simply because of secondary prizes and things like breakaway stage wins, but it's a pretty grim-looking trend.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Laporte should take a page from Gabriel Muller's playbook and change his last name to Champion de Cyclisme.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

This wasn't a big race, though...

That hasn't stopped Van Aert from losing at any point this year...

 

[awavey]

It was probably 12-13 seconds gap for Laporte at 1km to go. It was an insane effort to catch him so no wonder Van Aert did not have anything left in the end.

but then why leave it so late to try and cut the gap back ? at 1km it looked like Laporte had it won, WvA cuts the gap superbly to take it to the line but in so doing knackered his sprint for it

so I dont see what any of them sitting back hoped to gain by waiting on a circuit like that, its not like they hadnt done it a few times to know the way the course ran so would have a good idea where theyd have to commit to pull a 10sec gap back, its like almost they just expected Laporte to tire or give up.

 

[Peyroteo94]

It was probably 12-13 seconds gap for Laporte at 1km to go. It was an insane effort to catch him so no wonder Van Aert did not have anything left in the end.

Ok but Laporte was not spent too? De lie did a wonderful job, this should be an easy win specially against his regular domestique in classics. He is not riding against MVP.

 

[Red Rick]

But if De Lie is doing the sprint, then Van Aert doesn't need to be on his wheel in the first place...

If Van Aert full sends those corners he just gaps de Lie.

Overall, I think this race is a terrible proxy for actual championship races or hard classics. This was a meme parcours where the biggest selection was due to crashes. Unless De Lie shows something in a Sanremo or RVV I'm really not inclined to back him over Van Aert in a major championship race any time soon.

 

[Samamba]

F Vanthourenhout F Van Aert. Get some more 2nd places.

Don't go tell the world De Lie will sprint and Van Aert will do the leadout to then just do the opposite and see Van Aert fail... Once again.

Meme race with a meme ending.

 

[noob]

Wout looks literally confused