Road Cycling 2023 Discussion Thread

[Grassmarket 3,352]

Going to be a weird end of the season with the Worlds already out of the way, but there's lots still to do!  

 

Tuesday

 

Tour of Limousin

Tour of Burgos

Tour of 

 

One day Tour of Leuven

 

Thursday

 

Arctic Tour of , just before the snow starts falling. 

Edited August 14, 2023 by Grassmarket

[Rafa Maciel 1,592]

With the excitement of the World Championships dissipating, the action on the road has continued this week:

 

Men's Events

 

Vuelta a Burgos

1.)  Primoz Roglic

2.)  Aleksandr Vlasov

3.)  Adam Yates

 

 

Arctic Tour of Norway

1.)   Stephen Williams

2.)  Cristian Scaroni

3.)  Kevin Vermaerke

 

 

Tour of Denmark

1.)   Mads Pedersen

2.)  Mattias Jensen

3.)  Magnus Cort Nielsen

 

 

Tour du Limousin-Perigord

1.)   Romain Gregoire

2.)  Benoit Cosnefroy

3.)  Michael Storer

 

 

Women's Events

 

Konvert Koerse

1.)  Daria Pikulik

2.)  Julie De Wit

3.)  Valentine Fortin

[Grassmarket 3,352]

And plenty more!

 

Men’s Tour de l’Avenir

Benelux Tour

Women’s Tour of Scandinavia

Deutschland Tour

 

……and to top it all, the Vuelta starts on Saturday

[Rafa Maciel 1,592]

 Josh Tarling continuing his great time trial form by taking stage 2 of the Renewi Tour (Formerly Benelux Tour) - winning by 15 seconds over Tim Wellens. Whilst it is not the strongest field, it is still great progression for him and it should also take him into first place in the tour overall.

 

If he can keep this kind of form up over the next year, it is going to be difficult for the GB selectors to leave him out of the team for Paris. 

[Rafa Maciel 1,592]

Some of the main results from last week's action on the roads

 

Men's Events

 

Deutschland Tour

1.)   Ilan Van Wilder

2.)  Felix Grosschartner

3.)  Danny Van Poppel

 

 

Renewi Tour

1.)   Tim Wellens

2.)  Florian Vermeersch

3.)  Yves Lampaert

 

In the end,  Josh Tarling, who won the ITT and led the tour after Stage 2, faded pretty badly to finish in 114th place but in winning stage 2, Tarling equaled the record as the youngest winner of a UCI World Tour race - matching the achievement of Remco Evenepoel. 

 

 

Tour de l'Avenir

1.)   Isaac Del Toto Romero

2.)  Giulio Pellizzari

3.)  Davide Piganzoli

 

 

Women's Events

 

Tour of Scandinavia

1.)   Annemiek Van Vleuten

2.)  Cecilie Ludwig

3.)  Amber Kraak

[Rafa Maciel 1,592]

Quick round up of some of the main road races which concluded over the weekend. 

 

Men's Events

 

Maryland Cycling Classic

1.)   Mattias Jensen

2.)  Neilson Powless

3.)  Hugo Houle

 

Bretagne Classic - Ouest-France

1.)   Valentin Madouas

2.)  Mathieu Burgaudeau

3.)  Felix Grosschartner

 

 

Women's Events

 

Tour de l'Avenir Femmes

1.)   Shirin Van Anrooij

2.)  Anna Shackley

3.)  Gaia Realini

 

Classic Lorient Agglomeration - Trophee Ceratizit

1.)   Mischa Bredewold

2.)  Marta Lach

3.)  Sofia Bertizzolo

 

[Grassmarket 3,352]

Not able to watch any sport this week, but my Ipswich-Woodbridge bus was delayed by 10 minutes today by the Tour of Britain passing.

[Rafa Maciel 1,592]

Weekly round up of some of this week's action on the road: 

 

Men's Events

 

Tour of Britain

1.)   Wout Van Aert

2.)  Tobias Halland Johannessen

3.)  Damien Howson

 

Grand Prix Cycliste de Quebec

1.)   Arnaud De Lie

2.)  Corbin Strong

3.)  Michael Matthews

 

Grand Prix Cycliste de Montreal

1.)   Adam Yates

2.)  Pavel Sivakov

3.)  Alex Aranburu Deba

 

 

Women's Events

 

SIMAC Ladies Tour

1.)   Lotte Kopecky

2.)  Lorena Wiebes

3.)  Anna Henderson

 

 

 

[Rafa Maciel 1,592]

By my reckoning, we have 5 weeks of action left on the road before the Paris quotas are set so though it would be good to see where we are in the fight for Olympic Road Cycling quotas starting with the women. 

 

Women's Tour 

05-Sep - 11-Sep: Class 1 Stage Event: Tour Cycliste Feminin International De l'Ardeche

13-Sep: Class 1 1 Day Event: Grisette Grand Prix De Wallonie

15-Sep: Class 1 1 Day Event: Chrono Feminin De La Gatineau

16-Sep: Class 1 1 Day event: Tour De Gatineau

15-Sep - 17-Sep: World Tour Event: Tour De Romandie Feminin

15-Sep - 16-Sep: Class 2 Stage Event: AG Tour De La Semois

17-Sep: Class 2 1 Day Event: Grand Prix International D'Isbergues - Pas De Calais Feminin

30-Sep: 1 Day ProSeries: Giro Dell'Emilia Internazionale Donne Elite

3-Oct: Class 2 1 Day Event: GP Internacional De Ciclismo De Santa Catarina Femenina

3-Oct: Class 1 1 Day Event: Binche Chimay Binche Pour Dames

3-Oct: Class 1 1 Day Event: Tre Valli Varesine Women's Race

4-Oct: Class 2 1 Day event: GP Urubici De Ciclismo Femenina

5-Oct: Class 2 1 Day Event: Grand Tour De Ciclismo De SC Femenina

10-Oct - 11-Oct: Class 2 Stage Event: Tour of Wenzhou

12-Oct - 14-Oct: World Tour Event: Tour of Chongming Island

 

In addition to the 15 UCI events, there is also the European Road Cycling Championships at the end of September. This, and the fact that most of the events in October are taking place in Asia or South America mean it is unlikely that we will see a huge number of the top ranked European riders in action in October so we should know where the big team quotas for Paris are going to go before the qualification window officially closes.

 

At the moment,   and  are pretty much nailed on for full team of 4 riders.

 

That will leave    and  fighting it out for the remaining 2 spots to get full team of 4 riders. All the indications are that it could be very close.

 

Australia is currently sitting in 4th with 5,330 points. They were defending around 350 points from last year's SIMAC tour but their results this year were not as strong so their points total should drop to around 5,000 next week. They will need strong performances from Amanda Spratt, Brodie Chapman and Ruby Roseman-Gannon in next week's Tour De Romandie if they want to secure a top five finish. 

 

Switzerland is currently in 5th place in the world ranking with 5,146 points. They weren't defending any points from SIMAC tour and are only defending around 200 points between now and the ranking cut off in October, so they are on track to finish ahead of Australia. With both Marlen Reusser and Elise Chabbey in the Tour De Romandie, at this stage I'd say it is highly likely that Switzerland should end up with full team of 4 riders for Paris.

 

France is in 6th place with 5,108 points but they have not defended their 400 points from last year's SIMAC tour. This loss will be off-set by points gained in the Tour De l'Ardeche but because it is a Class 1 event, the off-setting points will only be in the range of 40-50 so I expect their points total to drop down to around 4,700 next week. At the moment, I think the only ranking French rider to be scheduled to take part in the Tour De Romandie is Juliette Labous which is going to make it difficult for them to maintain their push for top five finish unless they have stellar European Champs.

 

Great Britain currently has 4,686 points and are in 7th place in the world rankings. They are defending a little over 300 points between now and the close of the ranking window including 170 points from the SIMAC tour. Both Anna Henderson and Pfeiffer Georgi had a strong SIMAC tour this year and between them picked up over 600 ranking points. That would take them to around 5117 points and should be enough to move them ahead of both France and possibly Australia. Next week Anna Shackley, Claire Steels and Lizzie Deignan are all scheduled to line up for the Tour De Romandie and will hope to accumulate some additional points to keep them in the hunt for top five. Ideally, they would like at least 1 rider in the top 10 or 2 within the top 20 but it is classy field so it may come down to hoping that Australia don't outscore them. 

 

At the moment, I think that the battle for the fifth place in the rankings and the final full quota team is likely to be between Australia and Great Britain. In theory, Britain should have a slight edge by virtue of the fact that they have the continental championships to come - but for some reason (probably smugness) GB Cycling haven't taken part in the European champs for the last few years so they are potentially writing off perhaps 100 extra ranking points which seems like a mad decision. Without the extra European Champs points, it really could go either way - my calculations have GB ahead by a little over 100 points - but may come down to how well each team does in the Tour De Romandie. 

[hckošice 14,750]

The mega-prestigious Tour de Slovaquie will start on Wednesday in Košice

 

 

Start List have some interesting names https://www.okoloslovenska.com/en/teams-startlist

 

Especially the FdJ squad is quite surprising