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UCI Road World Championships 21st-29th September 2019 - Yorkshire - Race Thread.

Page 30 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
German Gomez finished, good for him. He was doing so well prior to the incident. Kid is showing a lot of promise for someone who's only been riding a bike for 2 years.
What did he do prior to cycling? I heard that Simmons also only started riding the past 3 years, before that he was skiing or something? I know Debruyne comes from short track skating. Evenepoel comes from football, a lot of the current top pros (Alaphilippe, van der Poel, van Aert, Sagan...) come from CX. It seems like the conventional cycling training may have become obsolete.
 
What did he do prior to cycling? I heard that Simmons also only started riding the past 3 years, before that he was skiing or something? I know Debruyne comes from short track skating. Evenepoel comes from football, a lot of the current top pros (Alaphilippe, van der Poel, van Aert, Sagan...) come from CX. It seems like the conventional cycling training may have become obsolete.

There's also this guy who used to do skijumping...
But CX - like MTB and track - is at least a type of cycling.
 
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What did he do prior to cycling? I heard that Simmons also only started riding the past 3 years, before that he was skiing or something? I know Debruyne comes from short track skating. Evenepoel comes from football, a lot of the current top pros (Alaphilippe, van der Poel, van Aert, Sagan...) come from CX. It seems like the conventional cycling training may have become obsolete.
As far as Simmons goes, he has been riding a bike basically all his life since the age of 3, and competitively since the age of 14. He mostly did mountain biking. However, he is indeed only in year 3 of riding a road bike.

German Gomez didn't do much noteworthy until he was 16. He comes from Santander, which isn't exactly a cycling city in Colombia. There is no academy or anything. He had to move to Boyaca and thus his story began.
 
The men's RR will be aired live here shortly after midnight on Sunday, I'll just have the blankie and hot chocolate ready. Won't be envying the riders at all.

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Just saw the replay of the Colombian kid whom nobody helped with his mechanical on the road, that's just so sad. Poor kid.
Such a shame as neutral service should have been right behind the lead car, therefore spotting him. However it is a race in the UK and therefore vehicles drive on the left. In Colombia like a good proportion of the world they drive on the right. Because of the uci rules saying cars obey the highway code, they drive on the side of the road the country drives on. Therefore any service or feed had to be on the left. So two things the Colombian team has learnt from the day. Always tell the riders which side service and feeds are going to be on. The second is to glue the tub better.
 
German tells his story (video in Spanish, text in Dutch) :


You should not be ashamed if you had never heard of German Gomez Becerra before the start of the Junior World Championship, but the 18-year-old Colombian became world famous in one fell swoop this afternoon. His tears went around the world. He tells his story at Sporza.

Colombian still finishes and becomes 60th

"I was very frustrated at the time," says German Gomez Becerra, who was left to his fate after his material failure. "I was also a bit furious. I felt good and stayed close to the favorites. But then the bad luck came."

"When I was back on the bike, I felt like making time again at the head of the race. But I had lost too much time waiting for help."

What exactly happened? "We drove through a village in a technical descent. And all of a sudden the tube had come off my rear wheel. I was waiting while one group of stragglers caught up with me afterwards. There was no neutral car that could take my bike. Me I just kept waiting for the Colombian selection car to arrive there. "

"That I received a lot of support on social media from all over the world? I want to thank all those people. I felt very bad at the time because I had been working towards this World Cup for a whole year. I wanted to represent my country as well as possible But due to mechanical breakdown I could not drive the World Cup the way I wanted it. "

"My goal as a rider is to ride the big laps one day. The Tour is my dream race. But I don't want to just ride the Tour, I want to win there. I'm good against the clock and in the middle mountains."
 
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German tells his story (video in Spanish, text in Dutch) :


You should not be ashamed if you had never heard of German Gomez Becerra before the start of the Junior World Championship, but the 18-year-old Colombian became world famous in one fell swoop this afternoon. His tears went around the world. He tells his story at Sporza.

Colombian still finishes and becomes 60th

"I was very frustrated at the time," says German Gomez Becerra, who was left to his fate after his material failure. "I was also a bit furious. I felt good and stayed close to the favorites. But then the bad luck came."

"When I was back on the bike, I felt like making time again at the head of the race. But I had lost too much time waiting for help."

What exactly happened? "We drove through a village in a technical descent. And all of a sudden the tube had come off my rear wheel. I was waiting while one group of stragglers caught up with me afterwards. There was no neutral car that could take my bike. Me I just kept waiting for the Colombian selection car to arrive there. "

"That I received a lot of support on social media from all over the world? I want to thank all those people. I felt very bad at the time because I had been working towards this World Cup for a whole year. I wanted to represent my country as well as possible But due to mechanical breakdown I could not drive the World Cup the way I wanted it. "

"My goal as a rider is to ride the big laps one day. The Tour is my dream race. But I don't want to just ride the Tour, I want to win there. I'm good against the clock and in the middle mountains."
Thanks for posting that!

I don't speak Spanish, but judging by his tone in the interview he seems to be taking it all in stride and is ready to move on.

He still finished (I don't think half the peloton did), so good on him, and hopefully he'll have better luck and much success in the future.
 

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