A true puncheur's WC here. Alaphillippe a deserving winner. Really happy to see Powless with a top 5. His emergence as a viable puncheur in top races was my favorite surprise of this season.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Valgren was insanely strong. Taking a medal against Stuyven and van Baarle who played more of a poker game than contributing was amazing. Also insane how tactics determined these championships. I think the Netherlands lost this one though, both with van der Poel not marking the Alaphilippe move quick enough and then with van Baarle not contributing when they got close to Alaphilippe. Powless, Alaphilippe and Valgren really rode with guts today, loved to see them all on the podium.
I loved this years courses, made it feel very tactical and rewarded smart aggression. Made things open to a wide variety of riders & rider types, and stayed competitive for hours on end.
Ala fully deserved back-to-back champion (can i get his MG Stats boosted? ).
Seeing a fan throwing their beer at him made me laugh and feel quite good the home team didn't get a single Gold
Van Baarle is underappreciated and maybe underrated, he’s not an obvious favourite or top-of-mind cyclist, but when he’s good legs, he should be seen as an outsider. The medal is an excellent prize for him.
Same for Valgren. Deserves the bronze, looked super strong and glad he found his good old legs. Has been so consistent inside the top-15 at the Worlds during the past years, another truly deserved medal.
Neilson Powless just needs to find consistency, he has great tactical skills to repeat the result he achieved in San Sebastian. Stybar was a nice surprise too, best I’ve seen him in a while, same as Pidcock which I didn’t expect to show so strong today. On the other hand, Mohoric’s season run finally took his toll on him, despite a decent top-15 result, but his legs are not as fresh as they were last month. Normal, since he has ridden at a high level since the Tour of Slovenia.
No comments about the Portuguese team. It was a bad course for the team, maybe Rui Oliveira was our best guy for a top-20, but no breakaway attempts, and yet again bad positioning when the key moce took place. Oh well, thought they could have get inspired by the youngsters’ show in the junior and U23 races.
FreitasPCM wrote:
Van Baarle is underappreciated and maybe underrated, he’s not an obvious favourite or top-of-mind cyclist, but when he’s good legs, he should be seen as an outsider. The medal is an excellent prize for him.
Same for Valgren. Deserves the bronze, looked super strong and glad he found his good old legs. Has been so consistent inside the top-15 at the Worlds during the past years, another truly deserved medal.
Neilson Powless just needs to find consistency, he has great tactical skills to repeat the result he achieved in San Sebastian. Stybar was a nice surprise too, best I’ve seen him in a while, same as Pidcock which I didn’t expect to show so strong today. On the other hand, Mohoric’s season run finally took his toll on him, despite a decent top-15 result, but his legs are not as fresh as they were last month. Normal, since he has ridden at a high level since the Tour of Slovenia.
No comments about the Portuguese team. It was a bad course for the team, maybe Rui Oliveira was our best guy for a top-20, but no breakaway attempts, and yet again bad positioning when the key moce took place. Oh well, thought they could have get inspired by the youngsters’ show in the junior and U23 races.
If he and Valgren can find the groove they had during Coppa Sabatini, EF is going to have a very scary classics duo on their hand next year.
Best man won, but Belgium is just so annoying to watch. We consider ourselves to be one of the best cycling countries in the world, but we never win anything.
For start our selection, what was Lampaert doing there? We had guys like Wellens or Devenyns who suited the course much better. Even GVA or Gilbert to bring some experience would be nice, because the race tactics were shit as well. Evenepoel is giving everything in the breakaway and Declerq is chasing behind.
Teuns and Benoot were useless as well, but I can understand their selection. Stuyven, Declerq, Campenaerts and Evenepoel did good, Wout had a bad day, which happens.
But yeah, even after we brought back Remco ourselves and got destroyed by Alaphilippe's first attack, it wasn't over yet. But we just keep riding with Remco like nothing happened. Did anyone really believe he put everything in that attack and wouldn't be able to do it again? In the last 25 years only Boonen and Gilbert managed to win the worlds despite all the talents we had, our tactics are just BS every year.
Ollfardh wrote:
Best man won, but Belgium is just so annoying to watch. We consider ourselves to be one of the best cycling countries in the world, but we never win anything.
For start our selection, what was Lampaert doing there? We had guys like Wellens or Devenyns who suited the course much better. Even GVA or Gilbert to bring some experience would be nice, because the race tactics were shit as well. Evenepoel is giving everything in the breakaway and Declerq is chasing behind.
Teuns and Benoot were useless as well, but I can understand their selection. Stuyven, Declerq, Campenaerts and Evenepoel did good, Wout had a bad day, which happens.
But yeah, even after we brought back Remco ourselves and got destroyed by Alaphilippe's first attack, it wasn't over yet. But we just keep riding with Remco like nothing happened. Did anyone really believe he put everything in that attack and wouldn't be able to do it again? In the last 25 years only Boonen and Gilbert managed to win the worlds despite all the talents we had, our tactics are just BS every year.
is this really accurate? I can't really remember any belgian rider being really at the very echolon of riders in any catorgory other than Boonen, Gilbert and GVA whilst iirc Gilbert and GVA had a period where they sabotaged eachother in the national team stuff (not counting the recent WVA and Evenepoel)
Ollfardh wrote:
Best man won, but Belgium is just so annoying to watch. We consider ourselves to be one of the best cycling countries in the world, but we never win anything.
For start our selection, what was Lampaert doing there? We had guys like Wellens or Devenyns who suited the course much better. Even GVA or Gilbert to bring some experience would be nice, because the race tactics were shit as well. Evenepoel is giving everything in the breakaway and Declerq is chasing behind.
Teuns and Benoot were useless as well, but I can understand their selection. Stuyven, Declerq, Campenaerts and Evenepoel did good, Wout had a bad day, which happens.
But yeah, even after we brought back Remco ourselves and got destroyed by Alaphilippe's first attack, it wasn't over yet. But we just keep riding with Remco like nothing happened. Did anyone really believe he put everything in that attack and wouldn't be able to do it again? In the last 25 years only Boonen and Gilbert managed to win the worlds despite all the talents we had, our tactics are just BS every year.
is this really accurate? I can't really remember any belgian rider being really at the very echolon of riders in any catorgory other than Boonen, Gilbert and GVA whilst iirc Gilbert and GVA had a period where they sabotaged eachother in the national team stuff (not counting the recent WVA and Evenepoel)
Well, both Boonen and Gilbert could've won more then 1, before them we had guys like Museeuw, Van Petegem and Vandenbroucke who I would consider world class, recently I would agree it's only GVA and WVA (not gonna count Evenepoel yet because he had no leadership role yet).
loved in any kit except the french national one I guess 
![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
