Welcome back to the GCN Racing News Show - this week, soaring temperatures, crashes, disqualifications
and retirements hit the Tour down Under in Adelaide.
The CycloCross season continues to build towards the World Championships with the penultimate
round of the World Cup in France, plus we take a look at the Gravel and Tar race in
New Zealand.
The 2019 World Tour season began with the Tour down Under last week, and, as seems to
be the case most years, temperatures were incredibly high, so high in fact that the
first two stages of the race were cut in distance.
The mercury hit 47 degrees centigrade, or 116 degrees fahrenheit in those early stages,
although photographer Graham Watson couldn’t figure out what all the fuss was about.
On the flip side, this year’s race actually had a touch of drizzle at the feed zone on
stage 4, leading to speculation it would be a hairy descent to the finish!
Anyway, we’ll start with stage one, and what a start it was for Elia Viviani, who
sent an ominous message to any rivals who thought he might not be able to back up his
incredible 2018 season.
Despite being right up against the barriers, with little to no space, the Italian champion
accelerated from way back to claim victory in the first World Tour race of 2019!
I mean it’s early days, but this could easily go on to be one of the top 10 sprints of the
season, it really was mightily impressive.
It was another hectic run in on Stage 2, which ended with a reduced bunch sprint.
CCC’s Patrick Bevan benefited from this with a tactical and well calculated sprint,
a surprise but thoroughly deserved win, and with it came the leader’s jersey.
The finale had been marred, though, by a significant crash involving a number of riders, with Marco
Haller probably coming off worst.
And that crash prompted an exchange of tweets between Nathan Haas and Ryan Mullen, with
the latter claiming that the breakaway only have one testicle between them.
Haas then tried to defend the breakaways actions, leading Rohan Dennis to give him a little
history lesson about how the race has been won previously.
It wasn’t long before we got the Sagan show, though - he took the spoils on the slightly
uphill finish of Stage 3 - his his first road victory, in fact, without the rainbow jersey
since 24th August 2015 - Stage 3 of la Vuelta.
Having previously been quoted as saying his form isn’t quite where it had been in the
past he is certainly showing no signs he is particularly far behind his normal standards.
Stage 4 was always going to be the first chance for a major shakeup on GC, taking in the climb
of Corkscrew, normally a good indicator as to who has the best legs in the bunch.
Beforehand Richie Porte was quoted as saying that Michael Woods would be the strongest,
effectively putting the pressure on somebody else.
And there was a new Strava record set, but not by Rusty, instead, it came from Kiwi George
Bennett of Jumbo Visma, 6:21 at 427w, and he must only weigh about 60kg.
Luis Leon Sanchez was particularly aggressive on that stage, as he was for the entire week
in fact, whilst overall leader Patrick Bevin was slightly distanced but chased back on
the 2km run down to the finish.
And it looked as though he might take a 2nd stage win, but, he was foiled by a well timed
sprint from last year’s overall winner Daryl Impey.
There was some controversy on stage 5 - there, Caleb Ewan won the bunch sprint, getting Lotto
Soudal’s first WorldTour win of the year, only for that win to be rescinded after he
penalised by the race jury for an irregular sprint - they deemed that there had been too
much physical contact with Jasper Philipsen in the final 500m.
The decision wasn’t a popular one, with many riders arguing Ewan should not have been
penalised, including ex sprinter Robbie Mcewen, no stranger himself to a little bit of argy
bargy at 65kph.
However, the UCI Commissaires have long set a precedent for disqualifying riders who use
their head to either intimidate or physically move another rider of their line.
It’s one of the UCI’s more consistent rulings, so it is good to see them actually
adhere to it, even if not everyone agrees.
The result was that Jasper Phillipsen was given the victory, but this is no doubt not
quite how he had imagined winning his first race for UAE Team Emirates.
That said, Phillipsen actually did look to have the pace over Ewan, so that should be
some consolation.
The overall classification would once again be decided on Willunga Hill, which this year
would mark the final stage.
And, in what is becoming a tradition, Richie Porte took the stage win, but not the overall.
Incredibly, that is his 6th win, in a row, on that particular stage, which, according
to our favourite cycling statistician, Cillian Kelly, makes him the only rider in history
to win the same stage of the same race 6 times consecutively.
However, as good as Portes acceleration was in the final 600 meters was, it wasn’t quite
enough to topple Daryl Impey, who became the first rider to take back to back overall wins
at the race.
Unfortunately for Patrick Bevin, who had really been man of the match over the week, he was
suffering the after effects of nasty crash the previous day, slipping to 41st in the
final GC.
A huge disappointment which we hope to make up for ever so slightly by naming him as this
week’s GCN Rider of the Week.
Expect to see plenty more from him in 2019.
If you’d like to catch up on any of the racing, we have both highlights and as live
video from every stage over on our Facebook page, but before we finish with the race for
this year, we’d also like to say a huge congratulations from all of us to Mat Hayman.
The race marked the end of a long and successful career for the 40 year old, and it seemed
particularly fitting that he got to hang up his wheels after tirelessly helping teammate
Daryl Impey to the win.
Hayman will be best remembered for his win at Paris Roubaix in 2016, where the bulk of
his preparation had come from riding indoors on Zwift whilst recovering from a broken arm.
However, he was as well known within the peloton for being a strong, dependable and loyal domestique,
as well as for being a genuinely good guy - I for one have never heard a bad word said
about Hayman, and a quick scan of the congratulations he received from his peers on social media
reveals just how highly he was regarded.
Congratulations for all you’ve achieved Mat, and all the best for the future.
A return to Cyclocross now for the 7th round of the World Cup, in Pont Chateau, France.
In the absence of Van Der Poel, we actually had a tense battle in the men’s race - in
fact, after 2 minutes, we still had no idea who would win.
The fast course saw a peloton of 35 riders still together after lap 1, a rare sight in
cyclocross, with the average speed close to 30kph early on.
The first proper selection didn’t happen until around the halfway point of the race
- Lars van der Haar having a tumble which effectively created the lead group of four.
In it, Jens Adams, Toon Aerts, Michael Vanthourenhout and reining world champion Wout van Aert.
All of them made attempts to get clear towards the finish, but in the sprint it was Van Aert
who was strongest, picking up his first victory in any of the big cyclocross series this winter.
He is also now the leader of the world cup, ahead of Aerts, but whoever finishes in front
in the final round next week will take the series.
Where was Mathieu van der Poel I hear you ask?
Well, since he missed the first two rounds of the World Cup in the US, he is out of the
overall picture, and so he decided to skip this penultimate round in order to prepare
both for the road season, and the remaining CX races, namely the world championships..
In the women’s it was Marianne Vos who won, securing overall victory in the series in
the process - amazingly, that’s the first time she’s ever won the Cyclocross world
cup, having often skipped the first part of the season in previous years.
Vos lead home Denise Betsema and Maud Kaptheijns in 2nd and 3rd respectively, making it an
all Dutch podium.
In fact, out of the top 10, 7 were Dutch, showing just how strong the women’s side
of Dutch cycling is right now.
Sticking with the theme of Dutch ladies for a moment, Anna Van Der Breggen has announced
she will be competing at the Cape Epic Mountain Bike stage race together with Boels-Dolmans
team mate Annika Langvad, and since Langvan was the winner of last year’s event, they
are likely to make quite a formidable duo.
Meanwhile, down in New Zealand at the weekend, we had the 4th running of the 1.2 ranked Gravel
and Tar race in Palmerston North.
Incorporating 40km’s of gravel roads and some big climbs to boot, it’s quickly gained
a reputation as being one of the hardest single day races in the southern hemisphere.
And it was a case of first race, first win, for the newly formed Irish Continental team
EVO Racing.
22 year old Luke Mudgway being the man responsible for that win, with teammate Cyrus Monk in
third.
And in the women’s, Brodie Chapman was first to cross the line.
You may remember Chapman from last year, when she won the Herald Suntour, in front of some
top international pros, whilst still holding down a full time job.
She came to the line with Jenna Merrick, and the two of them were in incredible 8 minutes
ahead of the next group on the road.
OK, That’s almost it for this week, but before we finish, let me inform you as to
what is coming up - the Australian season continues this weekend with the men’s and
women’s Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Races, and if you can’t wait until next week’s
Racing News Show to find out what happened, then make sure you head over to our Facebook
page, as we’ll have highlights of both races.
Cyclocross continues too, with the final round of the World Cup in Hoogerheide in the Netherlands,
the final major race before the big one, the World Championships up in Denmark in just
under two weeks time.
Stay tuned for the GCN Show tomorrow where we’ll be having a look at what’s changed
in cycling over the last decade.
Before then, though, why not check out our latest meet the presenters video, where you
can find out all about Hank.
You can find that just down here.
well cycling has done over recent years to improve a problem it once had!