Welcome to the GCN Racing News Show.
This week, the rainbow jerseys get dished out in Innsbruck, we go through the winners
and losers from the past week, plus we’ve got round 2 of the Cyclo-Cross World Cup from
Iowa City.
The new road World Champions have now all been crowned - for the next 12 months, they
will have the honour of wearing the rainbow jersey in the discipline in which they won
the event - except for the team time trial world champions - don’t even ask.
The most dominant display of the week came on Saturday in the women’s Elite race.
Pre-race favourite Anna Van Der Breggen of the Netherlands attacked with over 40km’s
to go, and was never seen again.
She caught and dropped Amanda Spratt, and although she held on for 2nd, the Australian
was a full 3 minutes and 42 seconds behind.
For Van Der Breggen, it erased the one blemish in her palmares - she’s won almost all there
is to win in road cycling, but this was the one that was missing.
That also means the Boels Dolmans have had the World Champion in their ranks for four
years in a row.
Almost as dominant was Remco Evenepoel.
The Belgian was the hot favourite in the junior men’s road race, having won the time trial,
plus pretty much every other junior race of note this year.
Things didn’t initially go according to plan - he was involved in a mass pile-up which
meant that he had to close a minute and a half’s gap to the front.
Which he did, with relative ease, and it wasn’t long before he’d regained contact that he’d
gone on the attack, eventually going solo and winning by a minute and a half.
Remco is the son of former pro rider Patrick Evenepoel, but amazingly, he didn’t take
up the sport until the beginning of last season, having pursued a career in football prior
to that.
He turns pro next year with Quickstep, as a 1st-year senior - that means we’ll have
a rider competing at the top of the sport, who was born in the year 2000.
How depressing!
Coming from a cycling nation though, that is a lot of pressure and expectation building
up on some very young shoulders, and it’s going to be very interesting to see how he
copes with it.
Watch this space.
Another young man who will be joining the Pro ranks next year is Marc Hirschi, who won
the U23 event world championships to add to the European title he won in Glasgow last
month.
He moves from the Sunweb development squad to their full pro team.
Our GCN Rider of the week, though, is Laura Stigger.
The Austrian lives just 50km’s from Innsbruck, and won the first of the road races, the junior
women’s, in front of her home crowd..
Stigger is the current MTB cross country world junior champion, and in her post-race quote,
she said “I just wanted to have fun, this is just my 2nd ever road race”.
Well Laura - that must have been fun, I mean I wouldn’t know, but I imagine you enjoyed
yourself - well done.
The Elite time trial world championships went true to form - in the women’s, it wasn’t
just double Dutch, but triple Dutch Annemiek Van Vleuten got the better of compatriots
Anna Van Der Breggen and Ellen Van Dijk to retain her title.
Incredibly, she’d go on to finish 7th in the road race despite having suffered a tibial
eminence fracture in a mid-race crash.
Here she is arriving home on crutches - hard as nails.
In the men’s, Rohan Dennis put in a dominant display to finish over a minute clear of Tom
Dumoulin, and take his first world championship title.
Interestingly, having finished 3rd, Victor Campenaerts went straight onto the boards
in Switzerland to do some testing for a possible hour record attempt.
Apparently, he has already done 54.8kph for half an hour, watch this space.
And so, we move onto the Elite men’s road race.
It was the only race to finish on the Hell Holl climb, with ramps of up to 30%.
Was it brutal?
Yes it was - so brutal that Andrei Zeits, who finished 22nd, had to walk up it……
It spelt the end of Julian Alaphilippe’s chances, and by the end of it, three riders
were locked together.
Romain Bardet, Mike Woods, and Alejandro Valverde.
Tom Dumoulin made it 4 with a couple of kilometres to go, but with nobody able to spring a surprise
attack, it came down to a sprint, and there was only ever going to be one winner.
15 years after picking up his first medal at the Elite World’s, an emotional and elated
Alejandro Valverde finally won the Gold medal and the Rainbow jersey.
A lot has happened in those 15 years - Valverde has picked up 4 Bronze medals, 2 silver, 4
Liege Bastogne Liege, 5 Fleche Wallone’s, 11 stages and the overall at the Vuelta, and
a 2 year ban for blood doping.
And so his win, was, well, somewhat controversial.
For some, it was a deserved reward for years of sacrifice and hard work from one of the
most consistent riders the sport has ever seen.
For others, it left more than a sour taste in the mouth.
If you’re not a fan Valverde, then when he wins, generally you can forget about it
and move on to the next race, but now, those rainbow bands will serve as a constant reminder
of cycling’s less than perfect past.
On the other side of the coin, he’s served his punishment, and therefore he has a right
to compete.
It’s a subject we would like your thoughts on as we’re going to be talking in depth
about it on tomorrow’s GCN Show - get stuck into the comments section below, let us know
how you felt when Valverde crossed the line yesterday.
Before we finish with the World Championships - well done to Mike Woods, who’s capped
off a great season by finishing with a Bronze medal, to Romain Bardet, who took France’s
best result for some time with 2nd, and to Tom Dumoulin.
The Dutchman has, this year, finished 2nd in the Giro, the Tour, the World Time Trial
championships, and now 4th in the road race.
An incredible level of consistency and professionalism which is something we can all look up to.
On to Cyclo Cross now, and It was the perfect trip to the States for Belgian Toon Aerts.
A win at the weekend in Iowa City made it two races, two wins for the 24 year old from
Belgium, racing for Telenet Fidea.
In a repeat 1-2 of last week, Aerts got the better of Van Aert, the two had been locked
together until lap 6 of 8, at which point Van Aert made a mistake.
Aerts didn’t need a second invitation, taking full advantage and eventually winning by a
comfortable margin of 51 seconds.
Michael Vanthourenhout came in third, making it an all Belgian podium.
In the women’s race, we had a new winner.
Not just from this season either - a win in Iowa marked the first career World Cup win
for Katie Keough of Cannondale Cyclocrossworld.
This time last year, Keough had finished runner-up in both the US rounds of the World Cup, so
this felt like a just reward for the 26 year old.
She made light work of the muddy conditions, powering clear on the 2nd lap, and finishing
with over half a minute’s advantage.
Behind, a strong finish from 21 year old Evie Richards of Trek Factory Racing saw her finish
in the runner-up position, whilst last week’s winner Marianne Vos could only manage 3rd
this time around.
Vos, though, leads the overall standings in the World Cup, which will now take a three-week
break before resuming in Bern, Switzerland.
We’ll take a one week break now before we return with the Race News Show next Monday,
don’t worry though, there are plenty more videos before then, including tomorrow’s
GCN Show so don’t forget to get involved in the comments with your opinion on Valverde’s
win - we’d really like to hear from you, whatever your thoughts.
OK - if you’d like to subscribe to GCN, all you’ve got to do is click on the globe,
and if you would like to see Oscar and James do their own race around Innsbruck, on Zwift,
you can find that down here……they didn’t win, obviously.