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Race Thread

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Very depleted fields for the Flamanville world cup. I think pretty much all the north american riders have headed home. All the british riders appear to be still in the uk, partly probably down to france only lifting restrictions from tomorrow onwards for uk citizens, apart from Zoe Backstedt, but she got covid just before the national champs so i'd be jubious about her attendance. Brand and van Anrooij are not on the start list, and I guess that's due to the Trek Segafredo training camp and there are only 3 dutch elite men.

Hoogerheide will be interesting to see how many skip that with the worlds a week after. Iserbyt doesn't really need to attend as he effectively won the series in Hulst. The u23 and junior events are also cancelled due to the dutch lockdown measures so if I were a rider like Ronhaar, Hendrikx, Mason, Verstrynge, etc, i'd skip this and either train, or get to the US early to adapt.
 
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Feel for the organisers; not a lot you can do if people are focusing on the Worlds. I do wonder why they can't run World Cups after the World Championships, like they do in MTB - never seems to be a problem for them.
One other option I feel a better approach to the season would've been is to push alot of the races a week or so earlier so that some take up the slots of where the US word cups would be, and so on until maybe mid/late december and then have the Flamanville and Hoogerheide following on from this, with a couple of the other series and non series races taking up the spots on the previous day (e.g Hamme and Zonnebeke). From here, the season runs as normal until after nationals. Following this the US world cups start with the world champs taking up the normal spot at end/start of Jan/Feb. The final races in the season would stay as normal.

Shouldn't be many problems with doing this as Flanders Classics run the World Cup and Superprestige so these are probably not a problem to move about. X2o Trofee and Ethias Cross by Golazo historically didn't have a race between nationals and worlds, plus their events are always moving about (e.g Hamme, Waasland, Leuven, Brussels, Essen, etc) so that wouldn't be a problem. The only issues may be the small non-series races like Zonnebeke, Otegem, Maldegem not wanting to shift, and the lack of a 'test event' at the venue in Arkansas.
 
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More or less double the number of world cups rounds held and this was bound to happen.
Personally more races to watch is great news.
Suprised Brand is not racing to put the overall on the self and not race next week, but racing at home and no travelling will be a factor.
I don't doubt Sven has it all planned.
 
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Betsema is now not racing on sunday either. That should definitely open the playing field up, although I feel the battle might just be between the u23s. If my maths is correct then this means Brand is uncatchable, even if Betsema were to win in Hoogerheide and Brand to dnf, dns or just have a really bad race. On the other hand, it does mean that if Pieterse were to win in Flamanville there would only be an 8 point gap between her and Betsema, making the race for second in the overall standings pretty close come the final round.
 
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It was commented upon Iserbyt’s drop out at the Belgian National Championships that it was a smart move and to instead focus and build base for the WC in Fayetteville. Personally I think it always looks bad with riders dropping out just because something/not everything is going their way (in this case a poor start by Iserbyt).

Think that Van Aert would never quit no matter what and that lends him lots of respect and grace. It shows respect towards your team, the organizers, the spectators and your fellow riders. That’s my opinion.
 
Tell me what I'm missing:

Men's elite cyclocross appears to be dominated number of Dutch and Belgian Pro Continental riders who fight it out for wins among themselves, unless one or more of the 3 World Tour pros who also excel at cyclocross compete--in those cases one of those 3 World Tour Pros win. Merlier seems to be the exception that proves the rule.
 
Tell me what I'm missing:

Men's elite cyclocross appears to be dominated number of Dutch and Belgian Pro Continental riders who fight it out for wins among themselves, unless one or more of the 3 World Tour pros who also excel at cyclocross compete--in those cases one of those 3 World Tour Pros win. Merlier seems to be the exception that proves the rule.
Actually that's incorrect as both Baloise Trek and Pauwels Sauzen Bingoal are registered as continental teams. Some of the cross riders for for Alpecin Fenix are riding for the Alpecin Fenix Devo team along which also includes a bunch of road riders and the ones who ride for IKO Crelan in the winter. MvdP is not world tour as he is riding for the aforementioned Alpecin Fenix team which is a pro-conti team that gets to pick and choose which world tour races it goes to due to being the highest ranked pro-conti team. Out of the other two riders, Pidcock hasn't really shown he's a level above the other riders like WvA has this year and MvdP has in years past. WvA is the only one out of the "3 World Tour pros" you mention that has done that this year. In the years before, WvA has been closer to Toon Aerts (although partly due to van aert's tdf injury) with Aerts getter the better on van Aert a few times.

Other than the small discrepencies with what you said, I don't see what you're getting at. For a long time it has been mostly riders riding for a mix of pro-conti and conti teams or equivilant. Yes the likes of Sven Nys and Lars Boom used to ride for the Rabobank pro team, but they also had periods with the same continental team. The likes of Fidea (now Baloise Trek) and Sunweb (then Marlux and now Pauwels) have always been conti or equivilant and so have Landbouwkrediet and BKCP (now Alpecin) at either conti or pro conti.

The main point is that although you have multidisciplinary riders like WvA, MvdP and TP the core cx racers are focused on cx. They and the teams will do some road racing but it's generally limited to smaller uci races in and around the the Benelux with some national level races as well. Riders are competitive in these (e.g Toon Aerts in Dwars door het Hageland, Laurens Sweeck in GP Monsere) but I think the road programme is used as building fitness for the cx season and any success is a by-product of this.
 
I assume the point was to suggest that the regular CX field is a bunch of mediocre conti riders who fail to win when their big brothers from the world tour show up…if so, it’s worth considering the other world tour riders that show up to varying degrees of success and mid-pack anonymity - Quinten Hermans, Joris Nieuwenhuis, Heinrich Hausler, Clement Venturini etc

WvA & MvdP (and to a lesser extent Pidcock) win a lot at CX (as they do on the road & mtb) because they’re cycling phenomenons, not because the rest of the CX field is a bunch of second-rate athletes
 
I assume the point was to suggest that the regular CX field is a bunch of mediocre conti riders who fail to win when their big brothers from the world tour show up…if so, it’s worth considering the other world tour riders that show up to varying degrees of success and mid-pack anonymity - Quinten Hermans, Joris Nieuwenhuis, Heinrich Hausler, Clement Venturini etc

WvA & MvdP (and to a lesser extent Pidcock) win a lot at CX (as they do on the road & mtb) because they’re cycling phenomenons, not because the rest of the CX field is a bunch of second-rate athletes

Completely agree. That’s why it’s so nice of Stybar, Boom and others to show up on the grid because it tells us that the level of (at least) the top 10 CX riders is absolutely high. Yes, gridding is a problem but still, riders like Sweeck, Van der Haar, etc are good no matter how you measure them. Could they qualify into a World Tour pro team? Surely. Would they want to? I guess not.

The other way to look at it is how good a specialist road rider like for example Pogacar, Bernal or Nibali or Sagan could be/have been? And then of course how good would the MTB specialist be like eg Schurter?
 
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It was commented upon Iserbyt’s drop out at the Belgian National Championships that it was a smart move and to instead focus and build base for the WC in Fayetteville. Personally I think it always looks bad with riders dropping out just because something/not everything is going their way (in this case a poor start by Iserbyt).

Think that Van Aert would never quit no matter what and that lends him lots of respect and grace. It shows respect towards your team, the organizers, the spectators and your fellow riders. That’s my opinion.
I get your point, but specifically regarding Iserbyt he always tends to struggle and drop back in races where he has a bad start or issues. This was the situation in the national champs, he alluded to it post race yesterday saying his good start was good for his mind.
Also with the world cup now being 16 rounds, one cancelled, all season cross riders need to manage their matches, I believe Iserbyt has raced 32 times this season.
 
It was commented upon Iserbyt’s drop out at the Belgian National Championships that it was a smart move and to instead focus and build base for the WC in Fayetteville. Personally I think it always looks bad with riders dropping out just because something/not everything is going their way (in this case a poor start by Iserbyt).

Think that Van Aert would never quit no matter what and that lends him lots of respect and grace. It shows respect towards your team, the organizers, the spectators and your fellow riders. That’s my opinion.
I get your point, but specifically regarding Iserbyt he always tends to struggle and drop back in races where he has a bad start or issues. This was the situation in the national champs, he alluded to it post race yesterday saying his good start was good for his mind.
Also with the world cup now being 16 rounds, one cancelled, all season cross riders need to manage their matches, I believe Iserbyt has raced 32 times this season.
 
The World Championships are headed to a state where only 52 per cent of residents are vaccinated, where COVID-19 cases hit record highs this week and more people are hospitalised with the virus than ever before.
The UCI is leaving it up to the teams to monitor symptoms and mitigate their risks. Even the PCR tests required to fly back to Europe will cost up to $200 per test.
From https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/eu...-covid-guidelines-for-uci-cyclo-cross-worlds/
UCI putting rider safety first/last again?
 
I suppose the UCI are only following local laws, which is different from the set out plans for the road season. But I suppose these inconsistencies have been throughout the season. Some races have had riders with masks on the podium and some the next day they haven't had to. It did seem very weird earlier in the season having the Boom Superprestige with spectators and the next day the Antwerpen WC was cancelled which is in the same country and only about 20kms between venues. Similarly the Rucphen WC had no spectators due to the lockdown rules in NL and then Namur had hundreds or even thousands of fans the next day.
 

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