World Championship 2025: Mens U23 and Junior ITTs and RRs

[Dazed and Confused]

Thread for all things related to mens racing except Elite ITT and RR. I suggest using the Womens thread for the mixed relay.

The U23 ITT starts today (22.09) in a minute or so.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Finn ftw.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Hate how depleted the field is with a blanket ban on pros racing. Obviously you don't want a Fedorov situation where a 22.5 y/o in his second pro season beats up the kids, but IMO they should have found a middle ground. First and second year U23s (by age) should be eligible during their first pro season.

 

[Red Rick]

Hate how depleted the field is with a blanket ban on pros racing. Obviously you don't want a Fedorov situation where a 22.5 y/o in his second pro season beats up the kids, but IMO they should have found a middle ground. First and second year U23s (by age) should be eligible during their first pro season.

Part of the field depletion is the prohibitive costs of going to Kigali and a number of federations just leaving the U23s and juniors at home though.

Honestly I don't think there's a great solution for this, other than spreading races out more and allowing riders to actually race more age categories if one of them is the u23 and one of them is the men's race. But maybe that's outrageous.

The extremes of either case are gonna look dumb to me.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Part of the field depletion is the prohibitive costs of going to Kigali and a number of federations just leaving the U23s and juniors at home though.

Even with every eligible rider there, the field would not have been good. On the U23 teams, there are straight up zero exciting climby-TT prospects, and even if we look at all TT prospects it's really only a Söderqvist who has stayed at the U23 level for longer than he should have.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Start times of the last 20 riders:

20	15:10		GROSS Adam	22:31
19	15:14		MARRIAGE Zac	26:31
18	15:16		REMKHI Rudolf	28:31
17	15:18		WALTON Jonas	30:31
16	15:20		MONTI Alberto	32:31
15	15:22		ALMUTAIWEI Mohammad	34:31
14	15:24		CRAUSE Pedri	36:31
13	15:26		KALEJMANN Mateo	38:31
12	15:28		PRINGLE Nate	40:31
11	15:30		HUBER Jan	42:31
10	15:32		LEIDERT Louis	44:31
9	15:34		THORNLEY Callum	46:31
8	15:36		FINN Lorenzo	48:31
7	15:38		KESSLER Cole	50:31
6	15:40		PERICAS Adrià	52:31
5	15:42		DECOMBLE Maxime	54:31
4	15:44		SCHWARZBACHER Matthias	56:31
3	15:46		VERVENNE Jonathan	58:31
2	15:48		MCKENZIE Hamish	1:00:31
1	15:50		SÖDERQVIST Jakob	1:02:31

 

[Samamba]

Hate how depleted the field is with a blanket ban on pros racing. Obviously you don't want a Fedorov situation where a 22.5 y/o in his second pro season beats up the kids, but IMO they should have found a middle ground. First and second year U23s (by age) should be eligible during their first pro season.

I still don't understand their decision. Was so easy to just find some midleground (like first year pros or riders who haven't raced in the WT, or haven't raced a GT, etc).

Obviously, like Rick said it also looks worse because it's in Rwanda and a lot of countries don't want to spend the money to get full teams there but still, it will look meeh every year from now on. Most of the time just a junior 2.0 fight between the same guys.

 

[QueenStagiaire]

If it were open to all U23s, some of the top favorites still wouldn‘t show up because they would be at the elites. I think it makes much more sense as a talent showcase instead of as a way to find the most farm-happy pro.

 

[Tim Cahill]

That Mali tt kit is unbelievably stylish, we need more of that sort of bollocks in the WT.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Jaka's in the lead. Stop the count!

 

[QueenStagiaire]

Jaka's in the lead. Stop the count!

Let the small nations like Slovenia have some wins as well, would be nice

 

[SafeBet]

I had never heard of Mateusz Gajdulewicz before today but his time looks interesting.

 

[SafeBet]

For reference, Gajdulewicz's time is 3'17" faster than Reusser's time from yesterday.

 

[nightowl]

Hard to know for sure but Gajdulewicz’s time looks really good

 

[Red Rick]

For reference, Gajdulewicz's time is 3'17" faster than Reusser's time from yesterday.

Bigger gap than last year, when it was 2'46 between the fastest U23 man and elite woman

However judging by Bäckstedt earlier today, it could also be that general conditions are much better somehow someway

 

[Tim Cahill]

This Pole with seemingly no prior tt results looks like a great time

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Surely that American guy in the arena must be a hired actor.

 

[SafeBet]

Borgo gained 13" on Gajdulewicz from T2 to finish, so the time is surely beatable.

Edit: Alvarez gained 14".

 

[Red Rick]

Conditions are way better than yesterday. Plenty of guys are beating the sector 3 splits of some top riders yesterday. Sector 1 is also close for many

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Tour of North Georgia winner, Jonas Walton, is also having a great day.

 

[Tim Cahill]

Nate Pringle really is the most Antipodean name yet, it's hard to explain why it just is.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Derek Gee from Walmart takes the lead.

 

[Red Rick]

That should be a DQ

 

[QueenStagiaire]

The Argentinian needs to be disqualified.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Nice that they've allowed a blind and deaf rider to take part, but also a bit dangerous.