heywoodu

Maybe 'Sagan announces end of career' can get some views as a headline on Dutch cycling websites, as long as they don't put the first name in the title Fine race for P. Sagan today, probably his best in a very long time.

Yep. Their employers have priority over the national teams, more and more often and logically so. Per Strand Hagenes wasn't really told that in the U23 race, but he just didn't do anything for neither: his Norwegian 'captain' Waerenskjold or his 'Jumbo-Visma captain' Kooij, so...yeah

Basically every major country (except Belgium but that was coincidence instead of tactic) screwed up Denmark, France, Germany, France, the Netherlands, France, Spain, France, Italy, France, Australia and France all had incredibly weird tactics that messed up all of their chances.

Eenkhoorn was gone and on his way to silver, but he didn't realize there was a gap and so he stopped riding

Not a fan of Evenepoel at all, but yeah, right now there is simply nobody who can challenge him as an overall rider.

The last time a man took the world title with more than a minute of advantage on the second-placed rider, (a) Van der Poel did finish Greg LeMond in 1983, with Adrie van der Poel in second.

And the TV directors finish their awful work at these championships in style, by missing what is most likely the deciding moment: Evenepoel jumped away from Lutsenko.

Meanwhile Lutsenko and Evenepoel finally succeeded in getting a gap, it's still early but wouldn't be surprising if this is the deciding moment.

Senechal has spent quite some time in the lead group riding on the front there, to increase the gap as much as possible. Now he's back in the peloton and...riding on the front What on earth are the French doing.

Denmark and the Netherlands with unexplainable tactics so far. It's like they are really going to gamble on Skjelmose and Eenkhoorn, by not riding in the peloton and letting Germany and Spain do everything.

Right, the peloton looks done, which would mean one of these is going to be the new world champion. Evenepoel by far the main favourite, with Bardet, Tratnik, Skjelmose and Lutsenko as main threats I'd say.

In road cycling? Yes, absolutely. In sports in general? I would hardly think so, surely there are significantly more competitive sports than women's cycling..

Evenepoel with the first real attack of this race, 60k to go.

You can probably scroll down and work your way up here: https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/world-championship/2022/result/live/livestats Although not a whole lot happened in terms of the race yet (Pogacar had a bit of an attack with 200k to go and split the peloton in two, but that was undone a while later), and even now the main story is still the Van der Poel saga

And that's it for / Rien Schuurhuis, who stayed in it for over 100km and showed himself nicely early on in the race.

Australian TV is apparently saying Van der Poel will have to stay in Australia until at least 23 October. So that's end of season. I wonder who sent those kids (two, apparently) who ended up finally getting a push/shove from Van der Poel after trying to get him to react. Edit: Van der Poel says there was no physical contact, which is a rather major detail if true.

And that's abandon Van der Poel after roughly 30km, damn. Apparently he was arrested last night and only got back to his hotel room around 04:00. A bunch of teenagers who nobody apparently raised kept disturbing his room all evening long, until he went to tell them off in a bit unfriendly way (but yeah, fuck off and let people rest). Police was called and he's being charged with two counts of common assault, his passport has been taken and he has to appear in court in two days time He did start, but it didn't take long unfortunately. All because of losing his cool after some children thought it'd be fun to keep pushing someone to the limit again and again..

Jeez, it's one after another lately in the world of sports

Vas has been rather invisible this entire year..

By the way, you'll be pleased to know there was some cheering on for Niewiadoma on a Dutch forum during the race this morning

Ah, great! Now my teenage cousins who don't care for open water swimming are absolutely going to suddenly love the 10km (which they never watch), now that there is no 25km anymore (which they never watched neither) !

Nah, even after winning today she still made it very clear 2023 is her last year, as was the plan. By the way, this time the Dutch team had far from any kind of control Nowadays it's mostly Italy which has the strength to control. Good thing for the Netherlands is Van der Breggen retired and Vollering was out with a positive COVID-19 test, which made the team as a whole stronger than the usual bunch of individuals.

I saw all kinds of non-English things starting to appear, but didn't want to complain (yet), so I'm happy someone else pointed it out

Oh wow, what an insane attack by Van Vleuten with her broken elbow in the last kilometer, without even standing up, straight to the world title

Five riders gone, same five as a lap earlier Almost getting caught by a group, and there's another group behind them. Super tense race