Calendar:
It starts with Time Trials:
- Sunday 21, morning: Elite Women (31 km)
- Sunday 21, afternoon: Elite Men (41 km)
- Monday 22, morning: U23 Women
- Monday 22, afternoon: U23 Men
- Tuesday 23, morning: Junior Women
- Tuesday 23, afternoon: Junior Men
- Wednesday 24 : mixed relays (2×21km)
Then come the mass start races:
- Thursday 25, afternoon: U23 Women
- Friday 26, morning: Junior Men
- Friday 26, afternoon: U23 Men
- Saturday 27, morning: Junior Women
- Saturday 27, afternoon: Elite Women
- Sunday 28: Elite Men
NB: Women Elite ride the same distance as U23 Men; U23 Women ride the same distance as Junior Men.
Here is the map of the circuit that all mass start races will use:
and an example of repeated profile:
In addition of this circuit, the Elite Men will also ride once a longer circuit:
which will result in this complete profile:
Good UAE team race 😀 Anyway, the single climb of Mount Kigali sealed the fate of the race.
After the usual string of stupid attacks, the peloton managed to maintain and reduce the gap a bit by being organised, which was much better than usual. But it lasted barely more than 1 turn (?) and then UAE’s Vine gave up, so the Australian team ceased to take the important part they had in the chase, and stuff returned to the normal disorganisation. Then Evenepoel came back and burned everyone behind him, so that riders, especially the remaining domestiques, were dropped, splits were created and good-but-not-top riders became reluctant to relay.
On the French side.
Good race by the young Seixas. He just lacked a few meters not to be dropped in the last episode of the race, and then missed catching up by just a few seconds.
One might blame it on the asinine tactics of the French team in the first loop of the race: where Voeckler had told them to attack and attack again (except for the protected Pavel UAE Sivakov and Mr Valentin I-swear-I-have-the-best-legs-of-my-life Madouas), as well as putting Julien Bernard in a breakaway promised to death (and it was made obvious by the Belgian+Slovenian teams, helped by the USA and Ireland whenever they slew down a bit, keeping the gap between 2 and 3 minutes), so that he was cooked and swallowed before the top of Mount Kigali.
Voeckler’s problem is that he was so much told he was a genius after the double victory of Alaphilippe that he started believing it.
Anyway, tactics today were not as important as yesterday: the legs did most of the result.
But in the end, the result is exactly the same as yesterday:
- 1st French comes 13th: Labous and Seixas
- their leader comes behind, 16th: Ferrand-Prévot and Sivakov.
Seixas just turned 19 years old during this Championship. Yet, he is the only rider in the top-30 who rode all 3 races of the Championship (ITT, mixed-relay TT, and today)!!
Any thoughts on the second Remco bike change? It seemed like he panicked a bit and stopped when the team car was miles away instead of continuing on and waiting for it to get closer, but I guess it’s harder to coordinate these things without radios.
According to his technicians, this (second) bike change would not have been needed, the two bikes he switched were the exact same; they checked and checked again. But Evenepoel believed the opposite; I reckon he was fooled by the pain he developed on the first bike after it ‘broke’, pain which was transferred on the second (correct) bike, while returning to a normal position. I would add that, after riding the second, normal bike a while and standing for a while on the roadside, his pain vanished and so he felt better on the 3rd bike, despite it being the same as the 2nd.
Anyway, Evenepoel was allowed to get back in the trunk of a car, possibility which had been denied to many other riders previously… And because of that, he seems to believe he was faster than Pogatchar and lost only because of his bike incident (indicentS according to him).
I mean, that’s Evenepoel being Evenepoel: it’s always something external that happens to him and prevents him to crush everyone, according to him.
Truth is he only was faster when he was dragged by a car. He also regained a handful of seconds when he accelerated to drop Healy and Skjelmose, but lost them again soon after, which is pretty normal.
While Pogatchar rode 66 km alone (and the previous two with only one helper), Evenepoel only rode 20 km alone: before that he was with 2 or 4 others guys. Of course their relays were not as strong as his own, but still he could rest. It also forced him to go slightly easier, in order not to drop them, which allowed him to save extra strength for the future compared to riding full gas (same for Pogatchar when he was trying to keep Del Toro with him).
Despite all this, after he ditched Healy, apart from the handful of seconds he regained at first, he continuously lost time to Pogatchar along the last 20 km. Oh, he was only slightly losing, but he never won anything; he was slightly slower.
Remco holy shit
Selection for Denmark:
Men:
- Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek)
- Anders Foldager (Team Jayco AlUla)
- Anthon Charmig (XDS Astana Team)
- Christopher Juul Jensen (Team Jayco AlUla)
- Alexander Kamp (Intermarché - Wanty)
- Asbjørn Hellemose (Team Jayco AlUla)
- Mikkel Honoré (EF Education – EasyPost)
- Casper Pedersen (Soudal Quick-Step)
Women:
- Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (CANYON/SRAM zondacrypto)
- Solbjørk Anderson (Uno-X Mobility)
Denmark won’t send anyone for the ITT, nor for the u23 and junior-races. Shameful, if you ask me, but they claim the riders have not been allowed to go by their teams or won’t go.
So, Uno-X refuses to lend a single (male) rider? And no-one from the contis Beton or Coloquick wants to go? I am a bit surprised.
Wouldn’t it rather/also be a federation willing to save money, thus not trying too hard to get riders? We’ve had the case lately in France, after the federation spent all their yearly budget on renting a castle for the Olympic Games… Then they couldn’t afford travel expense to… Belgium.
With UnoX I think it’s believable as they’re fighting so hard for the points right now to secure their invites for next year.
It’s probably also a federation looking to save money, but I think it’s more important to send the u23 riders and the juniors than it is to send the main team. Danish cycling is in a great state because we prioritize(d) youth development, so I think it’s a shame to see them miss out on this experience and motivation at the youth level.
With UnoX I think it’s believable as they’re fighting so hard for the points right now to secure their invites for next year.
I don’t think that they have any need for points for the automatic invites (which are calculated on a single season): they are 1st of the Pro-Teams, with a huge margin over the 4th Pro-Team (or Word Team which would drop to Pro-Team).
Is it not so, that they rather want to become a World Team? There (the points are calculated over 3 seasons), indeed, they would need to fight with Cofidis and such.
Right, yes, they are fighting to become a WT team :) That’s the explanation that the UnoX riders have given in the press for their absence.
We could try to record how many UCI points the Danish riders of Uno-X will score in the time around the World Championship, to check if it will have mattered or not.
At the moment, 3 of them (out of 8) are not in the first 20 riders (those whose points are taken into account); basically none but M. Cort are riders who brings points.
But of course, as far as a team is concerned, these non-scoring or little-scoring rider may still be useful in helping other riders to score! So in fact our exercise would pretty vain 😀
I’m fairly certain they will score no points, although a Cort in form (which he hasn’t been since the spring) could do some damage in Rwanda. The younger riders like Henrik Pedersen and Dalby might have been able to do something in the u23 races, but alas.
Anyway, it’s clear the WC will be deprioritized by many countries. I think the Danish team is still quite good, though. Skjelmose has beaten Pog this season in an uphill sprint after all, not many riders can say that!
Today, Uno-X didn’t score a single point in Wallonie. It looks like they had sent a B or C team, but still, there were points awarded to the first 40 riders, and they didn’t get one. It is much easier to score on a 1.Pro like this, rather than on the stages of a 2.Pro (like Luxembourg) or 2.1 (like Slovakia). Wagner-Bazin, Flanders-Baloise and even the conti Beat managed to score a handful of points, only Tarteletto didn’t.
Selection for France 🇫🇷
Men
B. Armirail and P. Seixas (both Décathlon) for the ITT.
The same + P. Sivakov (UAE) for the mixed relay.
For the mass start race:
- J. Alaphilippe (Tudor)
- L. Barré (Intermarché)
- J. Bernard (Lidl-trek)
- J. Jegat (Total)
- V. Madouas (FDJ)
- V. Paret-Peintre (Soudal-QS)
- P. Seixas (Décathlon)
- P. Sivakov (UAE)
remarks:
- Sivakov being selected again is a pure shame (this piece of $%@# rode for Pogatchar last year…)
- Seixas, 19 years old, is the only rider who is supposed to ride the 3 races, WTF?
Women
C. Kerbaol (EF) and J. Labous (FDJ) for the ITT.
The same + M. Squiban (UAE) for the mixed relay.
For the mass start race:
- L. Curinier (FDJ)
- P. Ferrand-Prévot (Visma)
- C. Kerbaol (FDJ)
- M. Le Net (FDJ)
- E. Muzic (FDJ)
- M. Squiban (UAE)
remarks:
- I thought Muzic had been disappointing this year? Overall it looks like being in FDJ is a favourable point in order to be selected.
That’s a stacked team for the womens’ though right? Which other nation is close?
Sorry for replying now, after the race; I haven’t connected in a few days.
I don’t know what ‘stacked’ means in this context, I don’t suppose it means that they have big boobies, so I will assume in the following that it means ‘strong’ or ‘dense’. 😀
As far as other teams are concerned, I don’t know them well, but Netherlands is always a favourite.
Concerning France, Kerbaol has shown in the previous races that she wasn’t in shape; Muzic hasn’t been good this year; Le Net can’t take so much elevation; Curinier is about the same; and Squiban really didn’t dig the cobblestone climb during the mixed-relay TT where Labous had to wait for her. That leaves, as real chances, Labous and a Ferrand-Prévot who has only race 1 day in 2 months.
So while that team may show a relatively good level of domestiques (especially once Kerbaol could be demoted to domestique), those were neither capable of winning, nor truly capable of keeping / catching up with other teams’ leaders’ attacks if it was needed.
Once the race was on, then finished… Well, the strategy and the tactics of the French team were an unmitigated disaster (they were not the single team in this case, though).
- Putting all their money on Ferrand-Prévot instead of balancing / switching to Labous;
- Putting the wrong rider (Muzic) ahead: a great classic in this kind of races; worsened here by the fact that it was her who created the situation by herself;
- Not pulling the peloton when you still have 3 domestiques, giving free minutes to the gals ahead; consequence: later, you have to pull harder than you’d have needed, your domestiques drop and you have to sacrifice leaders instead;
- Attacking instead of pulling;
- Pulling too hard in the slopes, instead of pulling more slowly in the slopes to save the peloton strength for the section where a peloton goes faster (when it is not cooked after your pacing in the climb);
- Staying on the wrong leader, wasting the other one.
France, Netherlands, Italy looked like they had 3 neurons for the whole team. Female races sometimes exhibit weird/crappy tactical sense; male races without earpieces sometimes exhibit weird/crappy tactical sense; when you sum both, you get female races without earpieces which are often outlandish…
Hindsight is cheating. I did get it very wrong though! Agree on the tactical stuff, that’s kind of the beauty of worlds though 😂
Hindsight is cheating.
I cannot travel back in time 😀
I did get it very wrong though!
Well, no, I mean, like 2 turns (or 3?) from the finish, they still had the situation in hands, they still had personnel which could still be used, they still had their two leaders: so, there had been no misfortune, and the level displayed was OK. It still looked like a strong team, in a good position to control and later send its leaders for the final attack(s).
And then they made all sorts of assessments and choices wrong.
