national road race curiosity

[aahmadhu]

hi, am a cycling fan from malaysia here.

this might not be an appropriate time to ask my question here especially after seeing one of the most amazing spring season in recent years of cycling. but after watching some of the big guys battling in races wearing their national champions' jerseys, i cannot help but wonder how the national championships are run.

i mean, first of all, who can race one's national championship? for instant, for france road race national championship, there are obviously a huge number of pro french riders out there and yet how do they pick who can race? is there a ranking system that ranks national riders and indicates that only top 150 riders, for example, are qualified to race?

secondly, i want to inquire about race tactics in national road races. riders who has same nationality teammates in their pro teams obviously have the upper hand; like boonen, pozzato, ivanov, etc. and also, obviously a rider cannot work alone, especially in single-day races where attacks fly around in every corner of the races.

i read in one of the threads that the UK national champions won the national race because he had teammates, fending off the likes of cavendish and wiggins who had not enough or no teammates. and i know the advantage dimitri champion had when he won the french championship compared to other protour riders who lacked supporting teammates.

then how, for example, cancellara or arvesen or taaramae or hutarovich, to name a few (surely there are others), who are the only riders of switzerland, norway, estonia and belarus respectively in their profesional teams, won their national championship without a single teammate? is it not uncommon to pull it off without a teammate in single-day road races? how do they control other attackers then?

i've watched a lot of bike races since years ago but never once watched a national road race championship. probably because of no coverage of national road races in my country. so, yeah, i have no idea.

 

[ak-zaaf]

You can download the last Dutch Championships here: http://cyclingtorrents.nl/

It's a strange race most of the times. We have 2 good teams now to compete with Rabobank, who have their ProTour team and some of their Continental ridersin the race. They can let all their Dutch riders start, so Rabobank usually starts with a lot guys (last year 18 pro's and 4 conti's).
It usually ends with everybody looking at the favorite, who rarely wins.
Again, it's a crazy race most years also because Rabobank is usually clueless about what to do.

/We also used to have a 'race within the race' for the Elite ZC riders. So you'd see a guy finishing 8th celebrating like he won the Nationals (because he did).

 

[pmcg76]

hi, am a cycling fan from malaysia here.

this might not be an appropriate time to ask my question here especially after seeing one of the most amazing spring season in recent years of cycling. but after watching some of the big guys battling in races wearing their national champions' jerseys, i cannot help but wonder how the national championships are run.

i mean, first of all, who can race one's national championship? for instant, for france road race national championship, there are obviously a huge number of pro french riders out there and yet how do they pick who can race? is there a ranking system that ranks national riders and indicates that only top 150 riders, for example, are qualified to race?

secondly, i want to inquire about race tactics in national road races. riders who has same nationality teammates in their pro teams obviously have the upper hand; like boonen, pozzato, ivanov, etc. and also, obviously a rider cannot work alone, especially in single-day races where attacks fly around in every corner of the races.

i read in one of the threads that the UK national champions won the national race because he had teammates, fending off the likes of cavendish and wiggins who had not enough or no teammates. and i know the advantage dimitri champion had when he won the french championship compared to other protour riders who lacked supporting teammates.

then how, for example, cancellara or arvesen or taaramae or hutarovich, to name a few (surely there are others), who are the only riders of switzerland, norway, estonia and belarus respectively in their profesional teams, won their national championship without a single teammate? is it not uncommon to pull it off without a teammate in single-day road races? how do they control other attackers then?

i've watched a lot of bike races since years ago but never once watched a national road race championship. probably because of no coverage of national road races in my country. so, yeah, i have no idea.

There is no limit to riders in a national championship other than they are all professional in the major countries. For example, Bbox Boguyes could have 20 riders or more in the French Championship. Sounds crazy but thats the way it works.

The German, Swiss, Luxembourg titles previously consisted of one race for all three nations but as German cycling grew, this situation changed and each country now has their own national race.

In small countries like Ireland that only have a handful of pro, the field is comprised of amateurs and pros together. Inevitably a pro usually wins but its feasible for an amateur to be a National Champion in a small country. Even though the pros might not have many team-mates, they often band together to eliminate all the other competitors first, then battle it out amongst themselves. Regardless of lack of team-mates, the cream usually rises to the top.

 

[brianf7]

National Road champs have been open to visitors in Australia.
Robbie McEwan made a protest re this practice because it can alter the outcome in a team mate from another country works for a particular rider.
Is it fair ?

Then National event is an event that dose not have UCI rating listed NE such as Melbourne to Warrnambool being the worlds longest race at 300km is a national event it was a UCI event and held point for riders to collect at the end of season but no more.