Those 2 circuit races, and of course especially the Montréal one, will be a live rehearsal for the World Championship that will take place in Montréal 2 weeks later.
Tour de France riders are back on the road: Del Toro🇲🇽, Seixas🇫🇷 and Evenepoel🇧🇪. The Mexican won the Tour of Germany as an appetiser.
Québec tomorrow Friday:
Matthews🇦🇺 won it in 2024 (and many other times), but last year it was a surprise victory by Alaphilippe🇫🇷. The Frenchman retired a couple of few weeks ago (another surprise) but the 35 yo Australian will be present again.
Montréal on Sunday:
Pogatchar🇸🇮 won it solo in 2024, and on a tandem with McNulty last year.
6 Comments
Deschanel2032@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
I started cursing again when a group of top guys which included 3 UAE and Seixas🇫🇷 took off and was offered a 30-40 seconds gap over a sulking Evenepoel🇧🇪, but only took half-relays, so that the Belgian could come back.
Luckily, in the main climb of the next turn, Seixas🇫🇷 accelerated again and then, less expectedly, launched a nuclear attack. Only Del Toro🇲🇽 managed to join him on the top of the hill. Behind there was a group of 4 and Evenepoel🇧🇪 was relegated in another group of 4 behind, which allowed the Franco-Mexican duo to gain some 45 seconds, and therefore secure the first two places of the race.
Seixas🇫🇷 tried another acceleration in a minor climb, but Del Toro🇲🇽 followed his wheel easy-peasy. The Frenchman performed a ridiculous rookie mistake in the two-man sprint he approached in 1^st^ position, as he didn't notice the Mexican had started sprinting before he was passed him: by the time Seixas🇫🇷 reacted and gained speed, Del Toro🇲🇽 was already at least 5 bike lengths ahead 😄
The Mexican's race has nothing to do with how he was just 2 days ago. UAE is really acting strange on those races; well, they are also acting very weirdly in Italy...
Commendable performance by the retiree and team-less Michael Woods (🇨🇦 Canadian selection), who was still present when the 'peloton' was reduced to less than 20 riders! 👏 👏 👏
He didn't collapse later either, as I see he finished in this range of positions. Many active professionals riders on this race cannot tell the same...
First FDJ rider is Braz, 24^th^. He was in the severe crash that happened about 40 km from the line. It took a fair time before he could stand up, fix his bike and restart. Meanwhile there were 3 breakaway guys, very honest riders, who were giving all they had, and a decent chase by the peloton, and neither could either enlarge or reduce the small gap there was: none were musing. And yet, pow! he was back in the peloton, solo or with a teammate. I found that really suspicious.
Perhaps there will be a fine or penalty, we shall see. Or perhaps it was magic.
CarstenBoll@feddit.dk · 2 pts · 19h
Very entertaining race, watched it while renovating my office last night. I loved seeing Seixas ride away, but hated seeing him lose to Del Toro - because fuck UAE. He'd have lost to anyone given that sprint error, though, maybe even Michael Woods ;)
Deschanel2032@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 18h
It took a looong while to take off, though. But well, that's rather normal. An Evenepoel back in stupid mode certainly makes any race more entertaining 😆
BTW, in Montréal, almost nothing turned favourable to him: the way the split groups were composed, almost nobody ever had a personal or team interest in helping him.
What makes Del Toro bearable is that he often rides without glasses (which now look more like bloody windshields). I am not sure it was on purpose today though, because while putting them aside in climbs is the right thing to do (I don't understand the 95% of riders who don't do it), he was also without spectacles in all the fast sections, which is very uncomfortable and can be handicapping for the rest of the race if some shit or insect gets in your eyes at fast speed, which isn't unusual. He is also more elegant on a bike than Seixas who looks like Froome with his too long limbs he has to bend and angle in various strange ways 🙂
He also very fairly relayed Seixas. He could have played the card "I have 2 guys just behind" and Seixas would either have had to exhaust himself in preserving a top-2, or we would have a reunion of a group of 6 (with 2 UAE), which may have then let Evenepoel come back (as he did) and win.
Seixas told he was looking for the 200 m sign 😃 I noted on the Québec race that distance signs were not all present on both sides, but they alternated: the .00 signs on the right and the .50 on the left side of the road (or the opposite, anyway...). So he probably was waiting for a sign that never came on his side. 😄
I am still not sure it was a very useful thing to do when you have gone 16 bloody times (!) through the same place, though 🤣
1800doctorb@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 17h
Can you elaborate on what you mean here? I had been focused on the Vuelta so I’m curious what they’re doing that’s weird.
Deschanel2032@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 11h
They start the races, but then they are basically nowhere to be seen: they don't attack, they don't pull the peloton, they don't chase or help chases, most of them have disappeared from the head peloton / groups by the time TV arrives, and the remaining ones just hide in it. In the end, if it happens that there is 1 UAE rider left in a front group, he tries his luck (on one race, Christen tried to jump from 2^nd^ group to 1^st^ instead of relaying; Cosnefroy appeared in the last mile of 2 races), but that's it, they are not active.
And this is what is strange: last year they had no mercy for small races, they were actively trying to win about everything, even class 1 races, even with their C team.
One may hypothesise that they use those races as they used the GP of Québec: they simply hang around, considering them as a training session, without going far into the effort. Now... training for which objective?
Deschanel2032@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
I came when there was something like 45 km to go. I kept on cursing at the TV until after the line.
Matthews (🇦🇺 Jayco), 6^th^, is probably the rider who optimised his (own and team) ressource the best. For example, when he felt a climb could be decisive, he would come at the front of group, so that he had the margin to go backwards if it was going too fast for him. This is his 10^th^ top-10 in 10 starts here! This is his race! 👍👍👍
(The Charmig case is disputable, as I consider him lucky to finish on the podium, thanks to both S. Simmons blowing up after his intense solo effort on the flat, and the idiocy of the group behind him).
UAE came as tourists (and Del Toro🇲🇽 wasn't good). But they often come as tourists here, to prepare for the Sunday race.
Seixas (🇫🇷 Decathlon) made many wrongly timed choice. It's Lapeira🇫🇷 who managed to to detach in a group of 4 or 5 in the final lap when, to save a little bit of the race for the race.
FDJ couldn't ride like idiots, as they never had anyone in the front groups 👍👍👍 🤣
I think it was Ayuso (🇪🇸 Lidl-Trek) who managed to crash in the sprint for the umpteenth place 🙄