heywoodu

Ah, the Golden Kilometer kind of thing they have in the Belgium Tour?

Hence my doubts about how realistic that would be. I can see the DQ's 'for knowing a prior result' coming in already

Yeah, see my post right above yours If that's possible, that would quite clearly be the better option.

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..

I really should have tried 5 minutes of research before picking Medvedev to win a match, I see he was mentioned left and right (before his match already) as one of the more expected first-round losses among top-32 players Then again, I already needed more than an hour just to fill in my predictions without too much thinking

But for quick races we've got other events, in championships it's all about placement anyway I'd be in favour of something like climbing where athletes don't see the previous results, but since I doubt that's realistic, this seems better than giving athletes in later heats bigger chances to qualify simply because of the draw.

Absolute horror for fans of the sport. Trying something new, sure, but once you see it just doesn't work, be big enough to say it wasn't a good idea..

The time based qualifying positions make for the same unfair possibility again and again: be in the first heat and your chances automatically go way down, since in later heats they simply can (and of course often do) run on a certain pace.

This is a good one though.

Oh shit. Not that absolute horror of a semi-knock-out format where the 3rd best of the day can win in events like long jump Gold with 8.10m, silver with 8.65m and bronze with 8.54m, it is entirely plausible.

No word on the Amstel Gold Race here yet, but government did announce yesterday that from now on (again) every sports event on every level will be held without spectators. They didn't specifically say it, but we've got football 'fans' to thank for that, unsurprisingly behaving like idiots so they won't be able to go again for a while. I guess that's what they wanted

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

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.

'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.

Belgian federation's president is a little salty as well, although in his case it's because he hoped for more instead of less for Van Aert Luckily there's also Johan Bruyneel.

Everyone, take a breather today, because it's going to be madness from tomorrow on I don't believe it's correct, since I think 2 November is the first day without a WT race after tomorrow, but still.

Cool to see some familiar names there like Eugen Wacker, Adrien Niyonshuti, Dan Craven and Elchin Asadov, who went into the attack a little bit today if I'm not mistaken But yeah, not surprising about Froome, before his magic appearance at the Vuelta he was just not very good

What a win, after recently losing his dad. Very much a deserved champion, and this time definitely one we are going to see a lot in his rainbow jersey.

Oh well, doesn't look like Roglic had anything left in the tank anyway.

Titiphilippe

At this point Roglic really should have been going all out for Van Aert...

Van Aert looks like they started 2km ago.

Let's go Nibali

Pogacar on a solo, roughly 35 guys in the chasing group including basically all of the main favourites.

Meintjes in the group of dropped riders in order to stay invisible.