Track Cycling at the Cycling UCI World Championships 2023

[Jinzha 702]

6 minutes ago, CCB said:

Lavreysen once again proves to be the best track sprinter at the moment. A great achievement from someone who is undervalued in the Netherlands. While he is really a super nice and approachable boy. Hopefully he will one day receive the right appreciation in the Netherlands.

 

Except for Lavreysen, the Dutch team is having a bad tournament with a handful of fourth and fifth places.

Yeah Lavreysen is one of my favorite athletes, but outside of the Olympics he tends to go a bit unnoticed. Track cycling isn't really relevant outside of world/European championships and the Olympics.

 

I was hoping Hetty van der Wouw or Maike van der Duijn could maybe surprise with a medal (in an Olympics event), but with Van der Duijn falling today and Van der Wouw with the 12th time in Sprint qualification I don't see it happening.

[AsensioWillemsen 174]

2 hours ago, Grassmarket said:

Bit surprised that    Were so passive there

Belgium had a poor lineup of youngsters, not unlike the netherlands. Raaijmakers is not it to me

[Josh 11,497]

3 hours ago, intoronto said:

Ace! Ace! Ace! In volleyball takes it for me

Chiming in on favorite sounds  

 

Monster block! Monster block! Monster, monster, monster block! (in beach volleyball) would have to be my favorite. (As long as the pairings I like aren't the ones getting monster blocked )

[Rafa Maciel 1,658]

Have crunched the numbers for Men's Team Pursuit qualification and  route back to qualification is probably not as bleak as a couple of the commentators had made out. (NB - the UCI won't update the ranking list until end of the WC so I am assuming that my calculations are correct ) 

 

As it currently stands, quotas are pretty much guaranteed for        and probably . That leaves   and  to fight it out for the final 2 spots so I'll concentrate comments on those 3 nations.

 

The scores on the doors for those 3 nations currently are:

 4210

3840

3690

 

Next round of points will be the continental champs.

 

Belgium - Finished 5th in the 2023 EC which was their best result for many years. They followed that up by finishing as the 5th European team at the worlds this week.  Projected EC 2024 finish: 5th for 630 points.

 

China - Finished 2nd in the 2023 Asian Champs having not contested the event for a couple of years. They were 5 seconds behind Japan but had 5 second cushion over Kazakhstan so should be able to replicate the result in 2024. Projected AC finish: 2nd for 810 points. 

 

Great Britain - Second behind Italy at the 2023 EC and they are always there or thereabouts but Europe is probably the most competitive region for track cycling so GB could finish anywhere from 1st to 4th depending on which squad they put out. Would expect them to medal and good chance that they finish top of the podium. Projected EC 2024 finish: 1st for 900 points.

 

Projected new totals

4840

4650

4590

 

So going into next year's Nations Cup series if  finish in the top 4 in the first 2 races, they would pretty much seal their spot without needing to worry about the final nations cup event but worst case scenario,  would need to finish at least 1 or 2 places above China in both of the counting events and can overtake Belgium if they finish at least 2 or 3 places above them.

 

 

 

 

[OlympicsFan 860]

19 hours ago, Jinzha said:

The madison is just too chaotic for my liking. Time for a clearcut event where 2 big muscular men ride three laps and Lavreysen crosses the finish line first.

Not sure i would call someone at 1.81 m big, but he for sure is extemely muscular.

[OlympicsFan 860]

18 hours ago, CCB said:

Lavreysen once again proves to be the best track sprinter at the moment. A great achievement from someone who is undervalued in the Netherlands. While he is really a super nice and approachable boy. Hopefully he will one day receive the right appreciation in the Netherlands.

 

Except for Lavreysen, the Dutch team is having a bad tournament with a handful of fourth and fifth places.

Did anyone actually underperform in your opinion?

[CCB 607]

2 hours ago, OlympicsFan said:

Did anyone actually underperform in your opinion?

Yes, Hoogland in the men's sprint, Van der Duin with a crash in the madison and will not compete in the omnium, Van der Peet (last year medal in keirin) and Van der Wouw a little disappointing (we expected a lot more from this 'new' generation) and last but not least a terrible tournament for Olympic champion keirin Shanne Braspenninckx. Büchli had two stupid falls in the elemination and finished still 4th.

 

Hoogland was good today, but he misses speed this tournament.

 

All by all a little disappointing tournament for The Netherlands. Except for Lavreysen ofcourse.

[OlympicsFan 860]

32 minutes ago, CCB said:

Yes, Hoogland in the men's sprint, Van der Duin with a crash in the madison and will not compete in the omnium, Van der Peet (last year medal in keirin) and Van der Wouw a little disappointing (we expected a lot more from this 'new' generation) and last but not least a terrible tournament for Olympic champion keirin Shanne Braspenninckx. Büchli had two stupid falls in the elemination and finished still 4th.

 

Hoogland was good today, but he misses speed this tournament.

 

All by all a little disappointing tournament for The Netherlands. Except for Lavreysen ofcourse.

Your new generation in women's speed events might have been disappointing so far, but not really sure how you could have expected a medal here from them. At least Friedrich, Hinze and Gros should have been favored over all of them and the emergance of Finucane didn't help either. Keirin is unpredictable, so they maybe could have won a medal there, but i definitlely wouldn't say that they were among the favorites for a medal. Friedrich won the last two world championships and only won bronze here, so even for the (clearly) best rider in the world a medal isn't a given. In the women's sprint a dutch medal actually would have been a big shock in my opinion. The most astonishing thing for me is that the Netherlands never do anything in the team pursuit.

Edited August 8, 2023 by OlympicsFan

[heywoodu 16,000]

Nobody at UCI has noticed yet that the graphics for the time trial events (the pursuits, the time trials, those things) seem to be broken?

 

They only show the position at every split, not the difference with the current fastest time, as is usual in the Nations Cups (and logical anyway or else....how are you going to spot the trends?).

[Grassmarket 4,028]

In the last sprint of the Madison  triple-mugged by    & : go from challenging for Gold to the  Gold in a split-second.

Edited August 8, 2023 by Grassmarket