No, I heard Phil Liggett say it. He’s old and losing steps. Bob Roll had to constantly correct him throughout.
Pogačar turns 22 today. So yeah, 21 years + 366 days today.
Bob Roll sounds like my kind of guy.
I watched (or listened to) most of the coverage yesterday, and I did hear it from either one of them.
Ineos also sponsored Eliud Kipchoge’s second, successful, attempt at a sub-2 hour marathon. Jim Ratcliffe, the company’s CEO, is - according to the Wall Street Journal - obsessed with endurance, and exploring the limits of human athletic achievement; he personally flew Kipchoge from Kenya to Vienna in his private jet.
So the bicycle team might represent something of a vanity project for him. Hard to otherwise account for Ineos’ sponsorship - as far as I can tell, they’re a chemical company. I’m not sure if they even sell to the general public.
World champs kicked off today at Imola in Italy - unfortunately the defending champion Chloe Dygert (USA) had a v heavy crash in the women’s TT, doubly unfortunate as she was smashing it and leading the field at the time. van der Breggen was the eventual winner.
Something goes very wrong with the front end of Dygert’s bike - speculation that she might have flatted or partially rolled the tub but it’s hard to see. Really hope she recovers as she hit that hard and has battled with a lot of injuries IIRC.
Men’s TT is tomorrow - the Watts will rage with some very big engines taking to the road. Two favourites are Ganna and Dennis - Filippo Ganna is prob the best ‘pure’ short course tester in the world now, annihilated the field at Tirreno-Adriatico, but can he beat Rohan Dennis who will be going for three in a row and is supremely strong over rolling terrain? Dumoulin, van Aert, Thomas, Campanaerts, Kung will all be in the mix. Personally hope Alex Dowsett can put in a strong ride - he was 5th last year and has been putting out some great youtube stuff over lockdown - insightful stuff into TTing and the life of a pro. He got 4th in the European TT recently and was gutted at missing the podium.
Men’s road race on Sunday is 250k, 5k climbing (but punchy, no one big pitch), with heavy rain forecast - a day for the Flandrian hard man if ever there was one. Know of you of such a man?
Unsurprisingly, WvA is the bookie’s favourite at 3/1 in some quarters - can Wout’s legs last for ever though? Picking the winner of this race is always a tough proposition but the parcours and conditions do sound right up the street of both Dutch and Belgian teams.
I’ll be looking out for Tom Pidcock in the UK colours - young phenom who was second to MvdP at the cyclocross world champs last year, junior world TT champ, and weighs around 58kg - ie he’s quite a small bloke with quite a gigantic W/Kg. World road race will be a huge step up for him, and it’s hard to see the conditions really suiting someone that slight if the wind and rain does properly come in, but hope he can put a good ride in nonetheless.
That was horrifying.
Didn’t Van der Breggen win the gold in the road race in Rio when Annemiek van Vleuten crashed while leading? I think that crash looked even worse than Dygert’s.
You are correct, Anna VDB won gold in Rio. That crash was absolutely horrifying. I thought Annemiek was dead or paralyzed actually. But no, she was back to winning races a couple months later, thankfully.
Listening to the announcers at a loss for words when watching the crash was horrifying. It looked awful.
Dygert sounded in good spirits on the twitters, has had surgery and the prognosis is apparently good - which is great news as that was one savage wound above her knee from the crash. Hope she can emulate WvA and come back stronger.
The mighty WvA in excellent form today but Ganna just in a different time zone on the TT. Head and shoulders above on a course like that. A bit on the short side I thought - 35 mins for the mens TT, but there’s always a mix of different course types from year to year.
G looked super sharp as well - lean and powerful, will mean business at the Giro and expect him to go well on Sunday. Bookies won’t take your money for Ganna in the Giro prologue.
Just saw that G misplaced his Garmin and rode the TT with no power/time/distance data whatsoever. Crazy result under the circumstances.
In other news, it seems as though van Vleuten has been cleared to race tomorrow, 8 days after breaking her wrist in a crash at the Giro Rosa. Because heaven forbid the Dutch women start the race with only 3 former world champions in their lineup when they could start 4. Pro tip: don’t bet against the Dutch in the women’s road race.
I don’t think I’ve seen men bring back the a 2+ min lead group as fast as these women just did. They don’t mess about.
No, still a minute and a half back. Not sure what I just saw.
Did you miss something? There was a largish group out front. The Aussies had missed out and started the chase, couple other teams joined in and the race came back together. It was really quick, as you said. Then Annemiek put in a monster attack on the major climb, dropped everyone but Longo Borghini and Utrep (? the Danish woman), and Anna van der Breggan. Then van der Breggan attacked over the top and left everyone in the dust and is holding a minute and a half on the group.
I must have done. Stepped away to keep house. Thanks for the update.
How awful is this tactically for everyone else? Woman who just won the ITT is a minute and a half off the front. You have to send whatever is left of your team to the front to absolutely bury themselves to have a hope of bringing her back. And if you succeed, you’ve brought van Vleuten and Vos to the line so van Vleuten can attack from a few km out and Vos can outsprint you. And I think the Dutch also still have van Dijk, Pieters, and Blaak in the group too. Just ridiculous dominance.
Right. And how do they decide who is going to be the one going for the win when 3 or 4 of them are fully capable of doing so. Did they draw straws?
In this particular case, van der Breggan was obviously the strongest rider on that climb. Annemiek tried to go with her but couldn’t.
Peloton must be racing for second now. The gap just keeps growing a second for every 500m.
Yeah, they’ve given up. Looks like the Italians are trying to set up Longo Borghini for an attack for the silver medal.
It’s clear to see how little money there is in women’s cycling. I notices earlier that the Slovenian champion was on a Cipollini bike (no big deal) but with a stock paint job which included the Italian flag. You don’t generally see that in mens pro cycling, I don’t think.