Lesser Known Road Racing for Women Thread

[RedheadDane]

Britain live.

 

[Andy262]

Still catching up with yesterday’s stage. It was pretty brutal. Sad for Roldan and Faulkner.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Jose and Dani guaranteeing we will have the GC determined at the line because there's 10" at the line even if Wollaston wins all three intermediates. Neglecting that Ferguson could build up more than 10" in theory.

Wollaston takes a second back in the first intermediate, which we almost missed thanks to some sub-Giro camera work.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Jose and Dani guaranteeing we will have the GC determined at the line because there's 10" at the line even if Wollaston wins all three intermediates. Neglecting that Ferguson could build up more than 10" in theory.

Maybe there's a reason why some go into media rather than DS work.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Another second for Wollaston, if this repeats at the last intermediate she needs to finish either top 3 (which would obviously settle it) or four places ahead of Ferguson. Ferguson has 3 positions over her on countback (5-5-1 to 8-3-3) and has the next tie break after that, in that she has won a stage.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Dani now talking about how it's such a good thing for racing that bonus seconds in intermediate sprints settle the GC because it makes things exciting. Not as exciting as having a course selective enough that you don't need them to...

As Ferguson has a mechanical.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

PCS:

[*]
+0:00
Ferguson Cat (Movistar Team) is in 1st position in overall GC, +0:00 down.

Yep: that's how it works.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I guess on the plus side, they are both tied on time on the road, so it isn't quite as bad as 2014, 2015 or 2018 where the time bonuses overhauled gaps created on the road.

Apparently however the second tie break is your position in this stage, for reasons I can't quite fathom other than that it makes the least worthy stage the most significant, so actually Wollaston needs to beat Ferguson only by three places if she can't make the top 3, rather than four.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Apparently however the second tie break is your position in this stage, for reasons I can't quite fathom other than that it makes the least worthy stage the most significant,

I believe that is always the case, it's not specific to this race.

I still think it is madness that total of placings rather than best placing that is the tiebreaker before getting to that.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Second time in three years that the GC is won by taking bonus seconds in the final sprint. Commentary all about how amazing and exciting this all is and how this is what bike racing is all about.

The points race is my favourite track discipline, but it ain't what road racing should be about.

Edit: Wollaston was four places ahead of Ferguson so she'd have won on countback if she didn't get the bonus seconds either way, so on the plus side it's less silly than that. Memories of Garzelli stealing the GC in Tirreno-Adriatico 2010 from Scarponi after the latter showboated to the line in Chieti only to lose on countback after Garzelli collected intermediate sprint bonus seconds on the final flat stage.

 

[RedheadDane]

I was looking at Slovenia for two seconds too long.
But not a big surprise, I guess.

 

[Andy262]

Boo, won by farming bonus points.

 

[awavey]

god damn those bonus seconds grrr

 

[awavey]

Dani now talking about how it's such a good thing for racing that bonus seconds in intermediate sprints settle the GC because it makes things exciting. Not as exciting as having a course selective enough that you don't need them to...

As Ferguson has a mechanical.

Dani just talks nonsense

 

[awavey]

Public vote I believe.

yep from a selection the race organisers pick, but for what ? unless the highlights I caught managed to edit out all of Lizzies super combative moves...they gave it to her because she was in the race...

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Boo, won by farming bonus points.

Unfortunately this is a historic and now long-running problem for the WTOB. We now have six editions settled on bonus seconds, and the only one of those I'd say is defensible is 2019 where Niewiadoma was 7 seconds ahead on the road but there was sufficient variability across the stages that Deignan picked up her time that it made it an actually interesting race. 2018, possibly the absolute nadir of it, Vos would have won on countback but Rivera had 11" in bonuses, winning the intermediate sprint jersey AND the GC without ever leaving the podium, while Dani Rowe came 3rd on GC entirely out of intermediate sprint time bonuses. 2014 would have been won by Ratto on the road and 2015 by Majerus, but both ended up 3rd behind those who'd farmed bonus seconds. Hell, Ratto was 35" behind despite having gained time on the road. And then of course since the pandemic gap, Longo Borghini won in 2022 by sneaking the four bonus seconds on the final stage unexpectedly.

At least, like in 2018, Wollaston was not behind Ferguson in on-the-road time, they have finished in the same group on each stage, but the only gap between them is bonus seconds accrued, and because there were 3 bonus sprints in this stage (as opposed to two in stage 2 and only one in stages 1 and 3) she would have won even without the bonus seconds at the finishing line because she finished enough places ahead of Ferguson to overtake her on countback (even without the silly 'final stage placement' extra countback).

Afraid that this edition has actually largely been better racing than anticipated, but leaves a sour taste in the mouth because of being settled in what is essentially an artificial gift race.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

yep from a selection the race organisers pick, but for what ? unless the highlights I caught managed to edit out all of Lizzies super combative moves...they gave it to her because she was in the race...

Judging from the prominence it was given in yesterday's commentary, it must have been for having a photo of her holding Roldan's hand. Which is an odd definition of combativity, but that's public votes for you.

 

[RedheadDane]

Kutxxxxxxxxa and Volkerwessel wanna have fun.

@Samu Cuenca, did I spell that correctly?

 

[awavey]

I can forgive 2014 as they were trying to work out a race and parcours that worked in a limited area and almost used the bonus seconds as a kind of fallback safety in case theyd got it horribly wrong.

Coryns win was really weird as I think she admitted several times in post race interviews they were just gaming the bonus seconds and not risking pushing to make breaks for the GC, and even more weirdly won the sprints jersey whilst never actually winning a sprint stage, but at least she took a stage win.

Wollaston is the first GC winner of the race, to have never won a stage during the whole race, so yeah you can say in terms of road positioning, she finished in the same groups as Cat so the only difference between them really was bonus seconds, or placement but shes won GC whilst not actually finishing 1st, or even 2nd, just 3rd alot.

and that seems crazy.

the problem is and you can already see it in the way theyre framing this result is the race was really exciting and unpredictable, and so theyre going to carry on doing it this way because thats what the public wants ???

and yes some of the stages were better than we'd expected, but alot of that seems to be the selections made by teams of which riders they picked, none of them were really sending a team of their best riders so there was alot of differences in the way teams reacted to situations through lack of experience, and some heavy crashes which kind of took out alot of the competition for the GC. I think if Kim hadnt crashed she'd have won stage 2 and probably secured the GC with it, if Faulkner hadnt crashed yesterday, she'd probably have won GC as well.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Nice to see Team Farto getting a bit of screen time

 

[RedheadDane]

Yeah, Espinola and Schoens were never gonna make it.
Sprint coming up.

 

[RedheadDane]

Adegeest wins.