The Grand 2022 Wollongong UCI Road World Championships Thread, September 18th-25th

[42x16ss]

Same average speed roughly as the junior and u23 races. That's pretty normal as far as I can see, though the men had better weather conditions.

With an extra 100kms and 2000m of elevation...

Pretty decent average.

 

[Jumbot]

Congrats to Remco, shows that being brave can get you big victories and not just looking at the other guy, waiting for him to bring you the win.

OTOH though, I almost haven't slept whole night to watch that shitshow? Can someone explain me how can you be happy with the situation in which you have your domestiques in a group with one of the biggest favorites and strongest riders in the world? Who has half of his teammates with him too btw... And nobody pulls and they let the gap to 2min-2.30, WTF? You go to the other side of the world, prepare for weeks for this race and then you put the brakes on your best riders because you don't wanna be the one who pulls? And you have a effing Eenkhorn ahead with Remco... EENKHORN! Why bringing gregarios at all if they're not gonna do their job, which is pulling for your strongest riders/leaders when needed? What is Tratnik's job (in which he's so good)? Getting the rainbow jersey? France going crazy like they've pulled the heist of the century even though not one of their 4 strongest riders made it into that move... And I'm sitting there, watching the group of favorites on a training ride, with disbelief on my face, while people coordinating this ccrap get payed real life money for it. With 70km to go I'm thinking it's over, Remco has it in the bag, secretly hoping that it's just my impatience and that I don't see the long game these peloton poker stars are playing... And then Brian Smith says that he thinks that the winner will still come form the peloton... then you know it's 100% over.
I'm just baffled by the idiotism, stupidity, more idiotism with most of the big nations except Belgium...
I get that some people enjoyed the confused nature of the race and that Remco fan(boy)s had the time of their life, and I can respect that... it would be fine for me if it's some smaller race but it's the WCRR! I hoped to see the best guys going at each other, giving their max, with of course some tactics involved... And this was just soo underwhelming... Just looking at each other while Remco is butchering their bottle carriers up the road, and everyone just being content with that. What did they think would happen while 50km from the finish? After so many great races we've seen this year, for me this was just bad image for the sport, not how you get more viewers imo... Knuckleheads is an understatement
Sorry for the long post but I'm tired and pissed off, and had to get this disappointment off my chest as I was really excited for this race. I mean really, Eenkhorn?

P.S.: I see same names that spent most of the July in Wout's clinic thread already laughing at him and belittling him and his result... I'll just say that him being there in the same team with Remco and having many other favorites focused on him, gives Remco more leash which helps him at least a little. So try to be more graceful in the times of success instead of acting pathetic like that. Kiss

 

[Lequack]

Congrats to Remco. I think he will prove that the rainbow jersey in not a curse and win a Tour de France in it.

 

[Netserk]

Of the action we didn't see, was Girmay dropping from the peloton the biggest disappointment today?

 

[movingtarget]

25	MOLLEMA Bauke

Good to know his remains haven't been found in a ditch, after he got eaten by pelicans.

The birds decided that Mollema was no longer a challenge and they plan to resume attacks on Monday with postmen and dog walkers. The footage of the attacks will be interspersed with footage of beaches, rock pools,lighthouses and bridges..........

 

[movingtarget]

Mathieu van der Poel charged with assault before Road World Championship race

Dutch cyclist retires early from Wollongong race following alleged night-time altercation with teenagers at hotel

www.theguardian.com

 

[Bolder]

Just watched the last 100 k on delay, avoided spoilers. MvdP's shenanigans aside, as soon as I saw that Remco had made the attacking group I figured it was all over. Chapeau to the little guy, what a leap he's made this year. Tactically he's actually pretty damn good.

 

[Jumbo Visma Fan :)]

Congrats to Evenepoel, my alarm awoke me with 8k’s to go to see him out front, so I went back to sleep, thinking that group of 5 would take the medals. I need to watch the tactical idiocy, as it sounded pretty extreme.

 

[RedheadDane]

Congrats to Evenepoel, my alarm awoke me with 8k’s to go to see him out front, so I went back to sleep, thinking that group of 5 would take the medals. I need to watch the tactical idiocy, as it sounded pretty extreme.

According to Skjelmose, they were given the wrong time gaps, thus thinking they had more time to play with.

 

[Jumbo Visma Fan :)]

According to Skjelmose, they were given the wrong time gaps, thus thinking they had more time to play with.

Still, I wouldn’t leave it up to chance if I was them.

 

[DNP-Old]

According to Skjelmose, they were given the wrong time gaps, thus thinking they had more time to play with.

Eenkhoorn said the same. Eenkhoorn was also under the assumption that a green guy, which was Tratnik, was an African.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Besides Belgium pretty much only Lutsenko raced really well today, he probably would have deserved to get a medal...

Also screw the Shimano neutral car that didn't stop for Saintbayar when he had a mechanical on Mt. Pleasant.

No team radios really changes the dynamics of a race. I like it, but what is the point of only having that in 1-2 races per season? We either always only have a neutral race radio (IMO the best option) or we also allow radios at the WC and the Olympics. Many riders just seem to act like a deer in headlights when they don't have a team radio to tell them what to do and things go a bit different than the initial plan.

 

[42x16ss]

Congrats to Evenepoel, my alarm awoke me with 8k’s to go to see him out front, so I went back to sleep, thinking that group of 5 would take the medals. I need to watch the tactical idiocy, as it sounded pretty extreme.

It was strange at times, probably because of no radios. I suspect that the peloton weren't aware Evenepoel had bridged to the lead group for a fair while, and reacted way too late.

The most bizarre thing I saw was Eenckhorn attacking over the top of the chase group, get a 25-30m gap then immediately sit up

 

[Netserk]

Of the action we didn't see, was Girmay dropping from the peloton the biggest disappointment today?

Küng was maybe another disappointment, but he had Schmidt ahead.

 

[Boes]

A lot of respect for woman and their career choices, but Oumi should be just used as breeding bunny now with Remco's genes.

I Lol'ed
Good idea though...

Wout not going to Remco to congratulate him was poor sportsmanship.

Not surprisingly at all, but he actually was the first of the Belgian team to congratulate remco but Aussie tv didn't catch it.

 

[Carrick-On-Seine]

Just watched the last 100 k on delay, avoided spoilers. MvdP's shenanigans aside, as soon as I saw that Remco had made the attacking group I figured it was all over. Chapeau to the little guy, what a leap he's made this year. Tactically he's actually pretty damn good.

Kind of the same here; got in from work at 1am and watched the first three hours til I fell asleep and just finished it now.
Delighted for Remco - only drawback to the day has been been Matthews losing the sprint..I had Remco and him one and two at 66/1.
Still made a tidy profit on a Remco win.

 

[Skijumper Roglic fan]

The most bizarre thing I saw was Eenckhorn attacking over the top of the chase group, get a 25-30m gap then immediately sit up

Hehe, I LOVE stories like these!

Maybe Eenkhorn was training here, and hopes to score big in the remaining traditional Italian autumn races with the highlight of Il Lombardia (if he makes Jumbo‘s team for these races)…

 

[Mayomaniac]

No idea if getting the wrong gaps is the main reason for it, but Sjkelmose, Rota and Schmid still blew the chance to fight it out for the 2 remaining medals in a pretty even fight (it's not like one of them is clearly faster than the rest/one of them has no chance in a sprint). Remco was gone and the rest of their teams would have been fighting for minor placings anyway.

 

[movingtarget]

This has also been the season with the worst TV directors I can remember...

Ed Wood would have done a better job...........

 

[movingtarget]

Eenckhoorn! WTF! YOU MORON!

Inexplicable. Maybe he saw a magpie or maybe he had a micro sleep ? Laporte and Matthews say thank you.........

 

[search]

Skjelmose said last gap given was 1:47. No idea at what point, though. But whoever told them obviously doesn't have his own GPS measurement system - so every rider should now that it's a delayed gap forwarded with another delay.

I just checked on live coverage, and going over the bridge with 4k to go, they actually still had ~1 minute gap over the chase group, which they managed to lose completely over the following 3k. So I think it's fair to say that it's their own fault.

 

[Danskebjerge]

No idea if getting the wrong gaps is the main reason for it, but Sjkelmose, Rota and Schmid still blew the chance to fight it out for the 2 remaining medals in a pretty even fight (it's not like one of them is clearly faster than the rest/one of them has no chance in a sprint). Remco was gone and the rest of their teams would have been fighting for minor placings anyway.

I think they all felt that Skjelmose was the fastest in a sprint, and the final result confirms that. So it was Skjelmose who was the biggest loser here. If he had pulled for 500 meters more, he would still have had a decent chance of a medal.

 

[Danskebjerge]

So I think it's fair to say that it's their own fault.

Definitely. And really, when riding at 10kph with one kilometer to go, it's risky business in most races. It seemed they would have been caught no matter what. The biggest loser was Skjelmose.

 

[Alexandre B.]

Van Aert said he didn't know they were sprinting for podium spots.

Understandable.

 

[titan31]

That was a horrific race. Just idiots all around. Belgium were the only team who looked like they were in a race and everyone else was on a training ride.