World Championship 2024 - Men's U23 Road Race: Uster-Zürich (173.5 km)

[YavorD]

Nevertheless, it's a very disappointing season for Denmark overall. And you can see it in the rankings. Having been among the five strongest nations in the world for years, Denmark has now dropped to 9th.

Of course if you think of Denmark as a minor cycling nation, it's fine to be 9th. But I don't. It would go against all statistics to do so.

But if you want to go with statistics, care to remind me the average position of Denmark through the decades? With all my respect, you get Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, The Netherlands and perhaps Australia and the UK as bigger historically. Then you could add Germany, Switzerland and Colombia to some extent. That leaves Denmark in 8th and 9th is around their natural position. Saying that, to me 5th position is, according to statistics you cited (of course, you didn't go too far back historically as it didn't suit your position, but yeah), more of a punch above your height than something normal to go by.
And that 9th position was heavily impacted by Vingegaard, AWP and Pedersen's crashes and Slovenia winning all 3 GT's. Again, as danish you have no reason to complain about the state of Danish cycling at the moment.

 

[RedheadDane]

And that 9th position was heavily impacted by Vingegaard, AWP and Pedersen's crashes and Slovenia winning all 3 GT's. Again, as danish you have no reason to complain about the state of Danish cycling at the moment.

I don't think that played a role. Pretty sure the ranking in question doesn't factor in Juniors.
But, yeah, this year only seems like a "bad" year for Danish cycling because we've been spoiled in recent years.

 

[YavorD]

I don't think that played a role. Pretty sure the ranking in question doesn't factor in Juniors.
But, yeah, this year only seems like a "bad" year for Danish cycling because we've been spoiled in recent years.

You're probably right about AWP, I agree.
But yeah, TA + GW victory + 2nd in the Tour with a stage win and 5 in the Vuelta would be considered amazing untill how much? 2 years ago?

 

[RedheadDane]

But yeah, TA + GW victory + 2nd in the Tour with a stage win and 5 in the Vuelta would be considered amazing untill how much? 2 years ago?

Maybe a bit more than that. 2 years ago we did have the reigning TdF winner.

 

[YavorD]

Maybe a bit more than that. 2 years ago we did have the reigning TdF winner.

Agreed. Maybe 2021. But even if you were told early in 2022 that Denmark will have such a season as 2024, you'd gladly take it, no?

 

[Danskebjerge]

But if you want to go with statistics, care to remind me the average position of Denmark through the decades? With all my respect, you get Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, The Netherlands and perhaps Australia and the UK as bigger historically. Then you could add Germany, Switzerland and Colombia to some extent. That leaves Denmark in 8th and 9th is around their natural position. Saying that, to me 5th position is, according to statistics you cited (of course, you didn't go too far back historically as it didn't suit your position, but yeah), more of a punch above your height than something normal to go by.
And that 9th position was heavily impacted by Vingegaard, AWP and Pedersen's crashes and Slovenia winning all 3 GT's. Again, as danish you have no reason to complain about the state of Danish cycling at the moment.

That's a typically Danish way of looking at things. "We may have been good for some years, but before that we were bad, so it's fine that we are now bad again." I prefer it the other way around: If you raise your level, the ambition must be to stay there or improve even further.

Therefore the Olympics, the European Championships and the World Championships have been massively disappointing from a Danish perspective. And on the individual level, the season has been quite disappointing too.

(But of course, we can hope for unexpected successes still.)