Men's U23 races and talents

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Feb 20, 2012
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No, definitely not, but worth remembering that Nordhagen came 13th in Romandie too, and he looked worse than his age group rivals both at the Giro and Avenir.

I don't think Seixas was at his best during l'Avenir, but it is only natural that a pro goes better than riders who are taking a slower or more gradual route to the WT, for whatever reason. That's why I'm not sure he's 'miles ahead', rather than just... ahead. As an example, I don't think he'd have come within 30s of Soderqvist yesterday.

I also don't think it's fair to right off the rest before they even turn pro. We have seen Ayuso plateau at an early age and others like Almeida grow year on year.
Agree on all counts. Seixas could probably have done better in his TT because I don't think he prepared very specificially for it, but I think Söderqvist straight up gets 3rd if he races the ME TT.

The step from top 10 in Dauphine to GT winner is definitely the biggest one. And I'm slightly sceptical about guys with a physical build like Seixas, i.e. tall and super thin.
 
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I think Söderqvist straight up gets 3rd if he races the ME TT.

Highly debatable. He weighs 83kg and the section of the parcours that was cut out for U23 was 8km with the 2km climb at 6.6%. That would definitely have impacted the pacing plan for the rest of the course and severely impacted his average speed due to the climb itself.

The step from top 10 in Dauphine to GT winner is definitely the biggest one. And I'm slightly sceptical about guys with a physical build like Seixas, i.e. tall and super thin.
Yeah, that's a fair point. It remains to be seen. In his defense i would say that usually those super skinny tall climbers suck at TT'ing and he doesn't.
 
Sep 20, 2017
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And I'm slightly sceptical about guys with a physical build like Seixas, i.e. tall and super thin.
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May 10, 2015
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No more nations cup at u23 level. We could possibly still see pros at the Tour de l'Avenir next year then, which is fine to me. On the other hand I did like the occasional race between countries instead of teams because teams are now just all development teams of World or top Pro Teams anyways.
 
Mar 12, 2009
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No more nations cup at u23 level. We could possibly still see pros at the Tour de l'Avenir next year then, which is fine to me. On the other hand I did like the occasional race between countries instead of teams because teams are now just all development teams of World or top Pro Teams anyways.
Could Tour de l'Avenir go back to even being a U-25 race then.
 
May 5, 2010
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Here's a pretty crazy story about Noah Lindholm (well, he's a U23 rider now, even if he wasn't when the issue happened...)


Basically, he woke up one morning back in November with one knee being triple-sized, and it turned out he had a long tear on his meniscus.
How did he get it? Well, it seems that at some point a year ago, or even earlier, he made a turn on his knee which cause something to happen, and that something just slow got worse over time.
Quite lucky it only became an issue in November, and didn't bother him over the course of the season.

At least... it doesn't appear to have been bothering him.
 
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Jan 20, 2011
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With the Men's Elite races being predictable , time to follow the races of the starts of the future.

Featherweight 19 year old Leander De Gendt gets 3rd in Trofeo Piva. He was 2nd to Junior World Champion Hudson in last year's U 19 LBL, but is listed at only 51 KG.

Will need to put ton sime weight, at least reach 55 KG, if he wants contend in the big hilly classics in the future.
 
Mar 31, 2015
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Finn looks like a really good hilly one day race. Hope he can be a good GC rider too so that we can see Seixas vs Finn duels in the future .
My main concern with Finn is that he's underperformed in pro races so far, even compared to peers he beats handily at age group level like Ormzel or Sparfel. It might just be a coincidence, though (and I think he doesn't train as professionally at the moment as Seixas et al, which I think in the long run will help him).
 

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