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Women’s RR - World Championships 2024 (September 28)

Page 12 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Vollering wanted it too much, and it showed, and Kopecky used that to her advantage. She should have let Longho Borghini go and win it for Italy.

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But that's the problem, a team goal just to win creates this situation where riders on the same team compete with each other, and consequently wreck each other's chances of attaining that goal.

It's a horrible management speak quote, but it's true, you have to fly in formation to be an effective team. As soon as people take it upon themselves to do things slightly out of formation even if they believe the goal theyre aiming at is the same, team cohesion breaks down and it becomes alot harder to do things.

Thing is, when you know Vollering can only realistically win solo or perhaps from a break of two you have to have a Plan B. Vos was the obvious Plan B but Vollering’s pressing kept dropping her.
 
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Dygart, though she managed a 2nd place, also played a role in Kopecky’s victory by helping pull the latter back to the leaders when she was thoroughly dropped. The way Kopecky was climbing at that point Dygart could have put in an acceleration to drop her and still ridden herself back to the front. But she just rode tempo up the rest of the climb, though perhaps she feared going over the limit herself. I guess she figured her sprint might be good enough. Such an undynamic racer.
 
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Thing is, when you know Vollering can only realistically win solo or perhaps from a break of two you have to have a Plan B. Vos was the obvious Plan B but Vollering’s pressing kept dropping her.
The thing is, Demi has a pretty good sprint. Just not one that will compete against the likes of Kopecky's. Of the puncheuse types she's usually one that can stand to leave it to a sprint, as against the likes of Longo Borghini, Niewiadoma, Uttrup et al, and only Lippert and Cavalli would likely fancy their chances against her in a sprint of that kind, but you'd often expect Demi to be able to pressure them enough before the sprint to affect that. However, as Kopecky has moved ever further into the climbing terrain, it's become something of a moot point because Kopecky will dust the lot of them in a sprint, but anybody that gets dropped seems happy to ride her back to the front.

That's also why I was dissatisfied with Faulkner's ride at the Olympics until she got away from the final quartet, because it looked like she would be handing the race to Lotte on a silver platter unless she was the strongest rider of the lot, but fortunately the latter scenario turned out to be true.
 
This was really dumb from Vollering, should have forced Kopecky do chunk of the work or risk letting ELB go away for good. And then she was the one closing down Roseman-Gannons early attack and to cap it all off led out the final sprint as well. With all the talk of internal rift at SD Worx , she was for some reason hell bent on making sure Kopecky won this race.
You really have to wonder what her plan was. She raced it as if she were the best sprinter, turns out was nearly the worst of the group
 
Hats off to an amazing race, Ghekiere!

Kopecky wins because she dares to lose and keeping the strongest kick at the finish line. Her level of tactics displayed today, Vollering can only dream of. How can the Dutch team end up with just a fifth place ...

As a Belgian I'm happy, of course. But after all the bad luck and heavy injuries, I would've enjoyed a Dygert victory too. Kudos for your persistance, Chloe.
She also won by pushing the pace on the last (wet) descent which distanced the stronger (imo) Dygert. That was pretty astute.
 
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Dygart, though she managed a 2nd place, also played a role in Kopecky’s victory by helping pull the latter back to the leaders when she was thoroughly dropped. The way Kopecky was climbing at that point Dygart could have put in an acceleration to drop her and still ridden herself back to the front. But she just rode tempo up the rest of the climb, though perhaps she feared going over the limit herself. I guess she figured her sprint might be good enough. Such an undynamic racer.
Monday morning quarterbacking at its finest
 
She definitely should have gambled and forced Kopecky to chase when ELB attacked. As it was Vollering and especially Lippert did all the heavy lifting for Kopecky.
My theory is that this race was the birth of Demi Vollering turnt Sven Nys. 20 years ago, Nys got shafted by the Belgian team in a CX race in Pijnacker. It's a long yet funny story, but ultimately most Belgian riders, long out of play for the World Cup, sprinted as if their lives depended on it, causing Nys, who needed like a 6th place finish to win it all, to come in like 9th, and thereby lose said World Cup. His reaction after the race was that everyone can sod off, from now on Sven Nys only cares about Sven Nys.

Given the amount of times Vollering has been shafted by SD Worx this past season, despite her doing work for the likes of Wiebes and Kopecky even when it made little sense, she does not care anymore. Therefore, we can safely say Danny Stam and Anna van der Breggen are the main reason this race went to hell and resulted in such a disaster class, as per usual.
 
Aaand Dutch media is solely laying the blame on Vollering. Predictable and idiotic all at once.
Look, in a post race interview (with VRT) Vollering said about the group with Vos and Markus having a minute going in to the last lap: " That wasn´t a good situation for ME." We´re talking a group of 4, with the fastest being another Dutchwoman.

How would you assess the situation in the Leuven wcrr, where there was a clear order in the Dutch womens team to do everything for Vos in the last lap, and Vollering rather went for a 7th place than doing a proper leadout? It was clearly stated then (by AVV) that Vollering only rides for herself.
And yeah, Loes Gunnewijk may not be tactically astute, but given there are no earpieces, she can´t give any orders during the race, or not very easy at least. The decisions during the race were made by the riders.
And I don´t understand why Vollering " being shafted by SDW" during the year would explain why her race decisions (one can´t call it tactics) where completely in favor of a SDW rider. Stockholm syndrome or what?

EDIT: Anybody heard post race interviews with Dygert or ELB? Would like to know if they had anything interesting to say.
 
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Aaand Dutch media is solely laying the blame on Vollering. Predictable and idiotic all at once.
Well, who would you blame otherwise? Other than Gunnewijk, who once again has proved incapable of creating a fighting unit with one goal: to win, doesn't matter with whom. Rather than: to win, but only with Demi Vollering.

Kopecky of course ? After you wrote Kopecky was done ! A true specialist. You can join the tv-director.
She was done though :) She did get a little lucky, even those who watch the race through a strictly Flemish lens would have to agree.
 

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