Road Cycling UCI World Championships 2020

[heywoodu 15,141]

48 minutes ago, Grassmarket said:

Yeah, Roglič obviously owes van Aert & company a big payback, but the right time to return it will be during the Monuments, not the WC where they are on different teams. 

'Different teams' isn't that much of a thing as people often like to believe at world championships. At least not when seeing national teams as by definition being different teams. A Belgian and a German can be closer teammates at world championships than two Spaniars, to give one nation that's famous for riding against each other as example.

 

Roglic wasn't going to win a sprint against Van Aert, possibly Alaphilippe (if they had caught him) and Kwiatkowski, all he could have done was help his teammate who did have a quick sprint. He just didn't have anything left in the tank anymore, nearly had to let go at two short attacks and his sprint was barely a sprint anymore, so it's only logical he didn't manage to pull on the lead for Van Aert.

[OlympicsFan 858]

1 hour ago, Grassmarket said:

Yeah, Roglič obviously owes van Aert & company a big payback, but the right time to return it will be during the Monuments, not the WC where they are on different teams. 

Why?

[Grassmarket 3,408]

1 hour ago, OlympicsFan said:

Why?

Because his team worked to his instructions & he let them down.

[OlympicsFan 858]

3 hours ago, Grassmarket said:

Because his team worked to his instructions & he let them down.

How did he let them down?

[Col_Frost 179]

5 minutes ago, OlympicsFan said:

How did he let them down?

Propably by loosing with Pogacar in TdF  

 

But I don't know what exacly that has to do with WCh. That is a race of national teams and membership to their "clubs" shouldn't have any influance at all.

[heywoodu 15,141]

1 hour ago, Col_Frost said:

Propably by loosing with Pogacar in TdF  

 

But I don't know what exacly that has to do with WCh. That is a race of national teams and membership to their "clubs" shouldn't have any influance at all.

But it has, and that's nothing new. I'm not a big fan of it, but it is simply how it is and of course it's not entirely illogical: cycling at the pro level is a sport of commercial teams, not a sport of national teams. Most riders aren't going to help a rival team get the rainbow jersey when someone from their own team is still in the fight as well, which flag they happen to have next to their name is a lower priority. Van Aert (and the rest) pulled every bit of energy they had out of themselves to help Roglic win the Tour in superb (yes, boring, but superb) fashion and this was his chance to repay. If he had the energy left, of course, which he didn't.

[Grassmarket 3,408]

50 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

But it has, and that's nothing new. I'm not a big fan of it, but it is simply how it is and of course it's not entirely illogical: cycling at the pro level is a sport of commercial teams, not a sport of national teams. Most riders aren't going to help a rival team get the rainbow jersey when someone from their own team is still in the fight as well, which flag they happen to have next to their name is a lower priority. Van Aert (and the rest) pulled every bit of energy they had out of themselves to help Roglic win the Tour in superb (yes, boring, but superb) fashion and this was his chance to repay. If he had the energy left, of course, which he didn't.

Well, that’s just the thing.  At pro level it’s a sport of commercial teams. At development level it’s a sport of national teams.  A Slovenian Tour/World Championship double in one week would have incalculable value for Slovenian cycling at all levels so it’s pretty damn unreasonable to expect all the Slovenian national team support crew to just give up all their hopes & career plans just to help some Belgian add to his palmarès.

 

(Granted you do sometimes see riders from minor nations help out their pro team-mates, but only if no-one has a chance of winning - it makes a mockery of the event if they sell-out a serious contender from their own nation).

[heywoodu 15,141]

9 hours ago, Grassmarket said:

Well, that’s just the thing.  At pro level it’s a sport of commercial teams. At development level it’s a sport of national teams.  A Slovenian Tour/World Championship double in one week would have incalculable value for Slovenian cycling at all levels so it’s pretty damn unreasonable to expect all the Slovenian national team support crew to just give up all their hopes & career plans just to help some Belgian add to his palmarès.

 

(Granted you do sometimes see riders from minor nations help out their pro team-mates, but only if no-one has a chance of winning - it makes a mockery of the event if they sell-out a serious contender from their own nation).

That would not have been new at all, the commercial team pays the bills, especially for a rider from a nation that's usually less developed in the sport. It's all a bit of a moot point anyway, since Roglic clearly didn't have the energy to either pay back Van Aert for riding his lungs out for weeks or to try and pull out some sort of 'sprint' for bronze anyway  

[dcro 10,210]

3 hours ago, heywoodu said:

That would not have been new at all, the commercial team pays the bills, especially for a rider from a nation that's usually less developed in the sport. It's all a bit of a moot point anyway, since Roglic clearly didn't have the energy to either pay back Van Aert for riding his lungs out for weeks or to try and pull out some sort of 'sprint' for bronze anyway  

 

Surely he had a bit of energy left? I mean, he sprinted for the bronze and came reasonably close to it for a non-specialist.

[heywoodu 15,141]

4 minutes ago, dcro said:

 

Surely he had a bit of energy left? I mean, he sprinted for the bronze and came reasonably close to it for a non-specialist.

But Roglic has a pretty decent bit of explosivity in his legs usually, he could normally be expected to have a bit of a better chance behind Van Aert, his sprint looked like he wished the finish was 150km earlier  

 

I really didn't think he had anything left..