Tag: Analysis

Tour Down Under 2015 Post-race Impressions: Australian Youth Movement Takes Charge

2015’s first WorldTour race is in the books, with Rohan Dennis emerging as the surprise winner of the Tour Down Under just ahead of a very strong Richie Porte. With plenty of great performances across the six days of racing, especially from up-and-coming talents, the TDU offered a few big takeaways to start the season.

Rising Stars Lead the Way

As mentioned in VeloHuman’s various pre-race publications, the Tour Down Under is often a coming-out-party for young and developing talents. This was especially true in 2015. Rohan Dennis was already a well-known rider in the pro peloton in 2014, but his Stage 3 victory in the 2015 TDU marked his first WorldTour win, and his overall victory made this an all-the-more impressive trip home for the 24-year-old Australian. Making Dennis’s emergence even more exciting was the generational battle within his own team: Cadel Evans entered the race as the nominal leader, but with a powerful (and quite surprising) attack in the final kilometer of Stage 3, Dennis muscled his way into the driver’s seat within the BMC ranks, and then held on to the overall lead. With a Tour of California mountain stage victory last year and now this win built on both climbing prowess and and explosive kick, Rohan Dennis has shown serious progression as a more complete rider recently.

But Dennis was not alone among the younger riders in the race: Steele Von Hoff, Juan Jose Lobato, and Wouter Wippert all beat out big names in the sprints to pick up their first WorldTour-level wins, and Jack Bobridge picked up his second (along the way to the King of the Mountains jersey to boot) by escaping those fast men in the opening stage. There were plenty of familiar faces near the head of affairs in the 2015 Tour Down Under, but the young guns showed up in force and put on the show. Niccolo Bonifazio, Ruben Fernandez, and George Bennett were other members of the up-and-coming crowd to make emphatic statements in this race, while 24-year-old Tom Dumoulin, 4th overall, continued what has been an impressive growth pattern over the past few years, climbing (and sprinting for bonus seconds) at a very high level all week. 3rd in the Worlds ITT last year, Dumoulin is clearly a lot more than just a time trial specialist, and the future is very bright for the Dutch all-rounder.

Bonus Seconds Decisive Again

For yet another year, bonus seconds decided the race, for better or worse, depending on your opinion of bonus seconds. For yet another year, the winner on Willunga Hill did not achieve enough of a gap to overcome the time bonuses picked up by a GC rival in prior stages; in fact, that makes two straight years for Richie Porte. Porte came into this race on excellent form and proved it in the final stage, but it was not enough to offset his deficit in the bonus seconds game. For having been in this exact position before, Sky’s tactics were questionable throughout the race: they did a whole lot of work on the front of the pack in the earlier stages, which only made it easier for rivals like Dennis, Evans, and Daryl Impey to get bonus seconds, and then in the queen stage at Willunga Hill, Porte waited until roughly the final kilometer to launch his devastating attack. He blew everyone off his wheel with sheer strength and won the day, but it was clear when Dennis rolled across the line nine seconds later that Porte had left it too late. Expecting to take enough seconds to close the entirety of his gap in the final kilometer of a not-all-that-steep climb proved tactically costly, and Porte paid for it; Dennis even thanked him for going so late in his post-race interview. In short, time bonuses don’t simply add an extra layer of excitement to this race; they have been critical to victory here time and time again, and Dennis showed once more in 2015 that potential race-winners would be wise to build their TDU gameplans with the battle for bonus seconds in mind.

Australians Dominate the Race

For the fourth time in five years, the Tour Down Under was won by an Australian rider. For the first time in several years, the podium was swept by Australians. Four of the six stage winners were also Australian, and a fifth rides for an Australian Pro Continental Team. On the one hand, and at first glance, perhaps the proper response is simply to be impressed at the consistent performances of home riders in this race. Plenty of international riders made the start, but Australian veterans and up-and-comers alike rode brilliantly on a variety of terrains to showcase their talents, suggesting that the state of affairs for Australian cycling looks brilliant right now, and that is without Simon Gerrans or Michael Matthews, among the biggest stars Oz has to offer, even on the startlist.

However, another conclusion to be drawn from all this Australian dominance is that it may just be time to find a way to bring the Tour Down Under a bit closer to the big races of the rest of the season. Domenico Pozzovivo was on the startlist and he rode well (finishing 6th), but if this race were just a bit closer to his main targets of 2015, one has to imagine he might have been in better form to challenge for the climber’s stage at Willunga Hill. Marcel Kittel, Giacomo Nizzolo, and Gianni Meersman were among the best-known fast men in attendance, and none of them cracked a Top 5 in a stage. And beyond these few non-Australian stars and the handful of authors active in this race, the big-name talents from the rest of the world were a bit scarce, with many top riders electing to start their seasons elsewhere. The event itself was a roller coaster ride all week long, but with a few scheduling changes, things might be made even better, with a few more global stars likely to not only make the journey, but to make it in form and ready to challenge for results.

-Dane Cash

Photo by Charles Wong.

January 26, 2015
2014 Rider Ranking Analysis: A Data-driven Approach

Last week, VeloHuman published an article focused on the breakout stars of the 2014 season, continuing a tradition begun in 2013. Just as was the case last year, much of that analysis came out of a data-driven approach: VH charted rider performance differentials from last season to this one by looking at the points riders accumulated in that timeframe according to both Cycling Quotient and WorldTour Rankings and comparing the difference from one year to the next. Such an analysis makes it easy to see the most dramatic shifts in performance across the professional peloton. Providing a bit of data visualization and also the raw data itself proved a popular decision last year, allowing readers to draw their own conclusions about the ups and downs of the season, so VH decided to provide those tools again this year! Without further ado, the 50 biggest CQ points swings (for riders who were active this season—Mauro Santambrogio, suspended for the year, was left out of the graphic) between 2013 and 2014:

Click here to view the full-size, single image version.

Just a few of the highlights that jump out from the graphic: injuries obviously played a huge role in 2014. Back problems, heart problems, broken wrists, broken collarbones, and broken ribs accounted for much of the red in the Top 50. For some riders, however, the dropoff in performance could not readily be attributed to a fracture or other ailment. Peter Sagan stood on two Monument podiums and won a Tour de France stage in 2013; he didn’t make a single Monument Top 3 and he went winless in the Tour this year. He still finished 2014 ranked 9th overall in CQ Points, but instead of progressing, as may have been expected of the still young star, Sagan seemed to stagnate. Alberto Contador, on the other hand, overcame injury to soar this season. He may have missed out on Tour results but he dominated the one-weekers of the early season, taking victory in Tirreno-Adriatico and Pais Vasco and 2nd in Catalunya and the Dauphine, and then came back with a vengeance in the Vuelta.

The red bar to the left of Vincenzo Nibali’s name may come as a surprise, but it shouldn’t; these are season-long rankings that take into account performances across the racing calendar. Nibali probably wouldn’t give up his season for the world, and a victory in the Tour de France makes it easy to ignore the entire rest of the year, but the Italian stage racing star plainly underwhelmed in the contests leading into the 2014 Tour, and did not put in many race days after Paris.

Heralded rising stars like Michal Kwiatkowski, Tom Van Asbroeck, Fabio Aru, and Tom Dumoulin soared up the various popular rider ranking systems this season and that is reflected here, but a few of the breakout performances you may have missed are shown as well: Pete Kennaugh made statements in several Continental Tour races, and with the powerful support of Team Sky he should continue to develop. Jerome Baugnies of Wanty – Groupe Gobert has been a consistent performer in lower level races across the past few months. Niccolo Bonifazio, who just turned 21 last month, has taken big results at home in Italy and abroad; he just won three stages and the Points Classification, as well as taking 2nd overall, in the Tour of Hainan, a fine way to close out his first full season as a pro.

The data visualization above offers some highlights from this season’s year-over-year rider ranking data but there is plenty more information to be gleaned from the raw numbers. If you are handy with data manipulation, you can draw conclusions of your own: click here to download the 2013–2014 data for the Top 500 riders of the season (on the CQ Ranking scale). Inside, you’ll find identifying biographical data (name, team, country, and birthdate) and CQ Ranking and WorldTour data from 2013 and 2014 along with the differentials across both seasons, so that you can filter and sort to your heart’s content as you make your own analysis. Keep in mind that Cycling Quotient’s ranking system and the WorldTour ranking system are different and favor different things—the CQ Ranking values Continental level results, for instance, while the WorldTour rankings do not. In fact, non-WorldTour riders do not score WT points at all even if they get results in WT races, which is why WorldTour ranking data doesn’t exist for plenty of names on the list. Both systems have their advantages, and ultimately, the sport’s biggest names score highly on both scales anyway.

Feel free to share your thoughts here in the comments or on Twitter @VeloHuman!

-Dane Cash

November 4, 2014
Breakout Riders of 2014: A Look at the Rising Stars Who Made the Season’s Most Emphatic Statements

The cold-weather months may be light on road racing, but they do provide an excellent opportunity to take stock of the big performances of the past season with an eye for future potential. Looking at the big picture of races from January all the way up to October, we can get a pretty good idea of the riders that made the most emphatic arrivals this season, and also of those already-known up-and-comers who took clear steps forward into the spotlight with high-visibility results. This sort of prospective retrospective is always nice to have in the middle of the following season, as a barometer of which rising stars are on track in their progression, and which have fallen short of expectations.

It’s hard to see anyone other than Fabio Aru as the year’s most emphatic arrival. He had been touted as Italian cycling’s next big thing for some time (in last season’s post-year retrospective, I named him as a likely break-out candidate), but he’d never even been on the podium in a WorldTour race before this year. Hard to believe, given that he’s now a three-time Grand Tour stage winner and two-time Grand Tour Top 5 finisher at age 24. A pure climber with an aggressive streak, Aru has the right combination of talent, racing acumen, and guile to pick up victories with bold long-range strikes on the sport’s most challenging slopes. The long, flat time trials are a major weakness in his game, but as chrono-light routes become more and more en vogue, Aru should continue to thrive in the Grand Tours. Interestingly, he doesn’t have much in the way of one-week stage race results to his name, but his skillset would seem well-suited to those too. In short, Aru should be primed for plenty more success as he continues to develop, and continue to develop he will: he doesn’t turn 25 until after the 2015 Giro. Teammate Vincenzo Nibali may have gotten the lion’s share of Astana publicity this season (and his Tour de France victory certainly represents a worthy career progression), but Aru really took a quantum leap forward in his two Grand Tour appearances.

Where Aru made his arrival the in three-weekers, newly crowned World Champ Michal Kwiatkowski made his statements in the one-day and one-week races, racking up a slew of stellar performances in the early part of the season (winning in Strade Bianche and putting in big rides in Pais Vasco, the Ardennes, and the prologue of the Tour de Romandie, his first WorldTour victory) and then coming back with a vengeance in September, winning a stage in the Tour of Britain en route to 2nd overall and then, of course, taking the rainbow jersey in Ponferrada. It’s more of a giant step-up than an arrival, as Kwiatkowski did flash serious ability in 2013, but he turned Top 10s into podiums and victories this year. For all-around talent, Kwiatkowski rivals Alejandro Valverde in versatility. Pais Vasco was an early expression of that versatility for the young Pole: he was 2nd to Alberto Contador on the General Classification thanks to his climbing legs and his stellar ITT, but he also won the Points Jersey after being in the Top 3 in five of the six stages of the race. After narrowly missing out on the Top 10 in last year’s Tour de France, Kwiatkowski’s ride from Leeds to Paris this season was a bit of a disappointment, but it may be that Kwiatkowski just isn’t a Grand Tour GC contender at this point in his career, and with the way he has performed in the shorter races, that may be okay with him given his ability to contest all manner of one-day and one-week events.

Giant-Shimano’s Tom Dumoulin was another 1990-born all-round talent to take several steps forward this season. Dumoulin, like Kwiatkowsi, showed promise with several big rides in 2013, but he took his game to a new level in 2014, racking up a few time trial victories in big races (including the Eneco Tour) and taking third in the ITT World Champs, and also delivering several strong road race performances. Wins eluded him, but he came very close in the Grand Prix Cycliste de Quebec, passed by Simon Gerrans just a few meters before the line. He also climbed well enough to hold onto 5th overall in the Tour de Suisse after getting into good position on GC early in that race with strong chrono rides. His time trial has been his biggest strength throughout his young career, but he made significant strides on the hills and at the finish line this season, and looks primed for big things on all sorts of profiles in 2015.

Alexander Kristoff has enjoyed a textbook progression over the last few years, steadily earning more and more success as he has carved out a niche on the road; in last season’s post-year impressions piece, I said that he had “established himself as a serious contender for hardman sprinter’s races going forward.” He delivered on that promise this season, winning a Monument Classic and two Tour de France stages and picking up plenty of other big results on the way. John Degenkolb, another hardman sprinter (who should challenge Kristoff on the tougher profiles for years to come), took a major leap forward this season as well. The German announced himself with five Vuelta stage wins in 2012 and had a strong 2013, but his victory in Gent-Wevelgem this spring, along with a runner-up ride at Paris-Roubaix, another collection of stage wins at the Vuelta, and several other major successes cemented his position as an elite rider on the tougher sprinters’ days. The emergence of Kristoff and Degenkolb will be a major challenge for Peter Sagan to overcome in the sprinter-friendly classics moving forward.

Stepping away from WorldTour teams, the Europe Tour provided a down-to-the-wire battle for overall supremacy between two of the year’s biggest arrivals: Topsport Vlaanderen’s Tom van Asbroeck and Bardiani – CSF’s Sonny Colbrelli. Both riders put in impressive performances at major WorldTour events early in the season (van Asbroeck in Gent-Wevelgem and Colbrelli in Milano-Sanremo), and top result after top result in the bigger Europe Tour races on the year.

WorldTour-level action was limited for both of them, but the talent (and top-end speed) is there: Van Asbroeck has a bright future in the classics, especially those where fast finishes are likely, while Colbrelli looks well-suited for bumpier sprinter-friendly days. Van Asbroeck should have plenty of opportunities to go up against prime competition next year, having signed a two-year contract with Belkin, who will appreciate his addition to their classics squad with the departure of Lars Boom. Colbrelli will stay with Bardiani – CSF, but he should continue to have chances to shine in MSR and the Giro, among other races.

23-year-old Tim Wellens has been with Lotto Belisol since 2012, but something clicked for him this season. The Giro offered the first hints of an impressive puncheur’s engine lurking under the hood; Wellens was active in long-range moves in Italy and came close to victory on multiple occasions, though a pair of 2nd places was all he had to show for his efforts. However, he didn’t have to wait too long to make good on that promise. Sitting 16th overall and 49 seconds down on GC, Tim Wellens struck out for glory from afar on Stage 6 of the Eneco Tour and held on for a decisive stage win and, ultimately, the time gap necessary to secure overall victory. He again put those punchy legs on display with a Top 10 in Plouay, and a 4th place finish in Il Lombardia among very impressive company. Lotto Belisol will be able to mount a potent two-pronged attack with Wellens and Jelle Vanendert in next year’s Ardennes and other hilly classics.

Orica-GreenEdge was able to enjoy the highly visible arrivals of multiple squad members. The Australian outfit knew that they were getting a wealth of talent when they signed the Yates twins, and both showed ability this season, with Adam Yates in particular having a breakout year. The 22-year-old took a stage and the overall victory in the Tour of Turkey and kept the foot on the gas for his next several starts, landing 5th in the Tour of California and 6th in a hotly contested Criterium du Dauphine (ahead of Tour winner Vincenzo Nibali). He won Italy’s GP Industria & Artigianato and was in prime position in a leading group of five in the final kilometers of the Clasica de San Sebastian before a crash took him out of contention. With explosive climbing legs and a willingness to take chances, Yates had plenty of success in 2014 and looks ready for more in 2015. OGE saw yet another major breakout season with Johan Esteban Chaves, a pure climbing talent with an affinity for the tough mountains.

Chaves had a promising 2012 but his 2013 was derailed by an early-season crash that left him with a number of serious injuries (including a fractured collarbone and cheekbone). He got back on track in style this year, climbing to stage wins in the Tour of California and 3rd overall in the Tour of Beijing. He likely still needs to get some mileage as a WorldTour pro before he can put in a challenge in the Grand Tours, but he’s ready to contend in the one-week races right now. Suddenly Orica-GreenEdge has multiple options in the mountains.

French cycling enjoyed a renaissance year, and Romain Bardet‘s emergence as a top-level threat was a big part of that. After a strong 2013, his progression wasn’t necessarily unexpected, but a nation of cycling fans was pleased to see him deliver on his early promise. His impressive climbing legs took him to 6th overall in the Tour (he was a flat tire in the final ITT away from 5th), and he also displayed a surprising knack for one-day success, landing in the Top 10 in Liege-Bastogne-Liege and the GP Montreal. He has a surprising kick and should make waves in the shorter climber-friendly races as he continues to develop for the Grand Tours.

Cannondale may be going through a merger/takeover, but the final year of the team as we know it saw a few impressive stage racing performances from rising stars. Neo-pro Davide Formolo, just 22, climbed to 4th in the Tour of Turkey and then a month later, against several top GC-style riders nearing their Tour de France peak form, he finished 7th overall in the Tour de Suisse. He strung together a nice collection of results in smaller one-day races as well. He should continue to develop with the new Garmin-Cannondale squad. Meanwhile, another Italian talent wearing Cannondale green took major strides forward in the Vuelta. Damiano Caruso had never been in the Top 10 in the General Classification of a WorldTour race until this season, but he picked up his first WT Top 10 in style at the Vuelta a España, where he consistently hung with the best climbers in the bunch most of the way up that race’s toughest mountains. BMC, running a bit low on GC guys as Cadel Evans retires and Samuel Sanchez nears the end of his career, will be glad to have the infusion of talent as he joins them for 2015.

Speaking of BMC, Silvan Dillier put together a nice season, picking up results in a wide variety of races and contributing to his squad’s World Championship TTT ride as well. He thrives during hard days in the saddle and has a fast finish to boot. The same could be said (and more emphatically) of the skillset of Garmin-Sharp’s Ramunas Navardauskas. He picked up an impressive win with a late attack in the Tour de France, and he was 3rd in Quebec and 4th in Montreal. He’s always been an aggressive rider with a knack for getting clear on the harder profiles, but an improved finishing kick allowed him to contest a number of sprint finishes this year. He’s now won two Grand Tour stages, and at age 26, he’s just hitting his prime.

Michael Valgren of Tinkoff-Saxo gets the final mention. The 22-year-old has been a high-profile prospect for some time after delivering several big results in U23 and national events, but this season he sailed to a convincing victory in the Post Danmark Rundt and put in several other strong rides in big races. He was a visible figure at the Worlds Road Race, taking several shots from afar. He has a wide array of talents and a lot of raw power in the tank, and at just 22, he should be on track to land plenty more big results in 2015.

This is, of course, not an exhaustive list, but hopefully it makes for a useful catalog of the year’s biggest arrivals and most improved up-and-comers. For many of them, breakout success will lead to more focused scrutiny in 2015, which should offer plenty of interesting storylines for the upcoming season as these young rising talents try to cope with pressure to perform. To face that challenge, they will hope to get in as much recovery this offseason as possible, but January and the start of the WorldTour in Australia get closer every day.

-Dane Cash

Photos by Alberto Brevers and moz278.

October 28, 2014
Riding into the Offseason

The conclusion of the Tour of Beijing was also the conclusion of the 2014 WorldTour and, therefore, the start of several months of R&R for most of the pro peloton. Several big names enjoyed one last hurrah in the 2.HC Japan Cycle Cup (won for a second time by Garmin-Sharp’s Nathan Haas), but with that race in the books, the vast majority of WorldTour riders have begun their offseason, with only a select few top-level pros still participating in races like the Tour of Hainan.

Most of the peloton will welcome the opportunity to rest and recover, but the offseason does come with an unfortunate side effect: the professional road cycling world inevitably quiets down a bit during the wintertime! For instance, there won’t be any VeloHuman race previews until January, when the 2015 WorldTour kicks off with the Tour Down Under. Even after that, things don’t really get rolling until early March and the double billing of Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico. But that doesn’t mean things will be completely silent around here or in the road cycling world at large during the cold-weather months: there’s always something happening in this sport, and even when the biggest stars aren’t racing on the asphalt, some recognizable names are racing in the dirt (cyclocross season is here!), the routes of next year’s major races are being revealed all the time, and several top riders are still hunting for teams for the upcoming season. In other words, stay tuned! There is still plenty of analysis to come here at VH even during the long dark offseason. Be sure to follow @VeloHuman on Twitter to stay connected.

-Dane Cash

Photo by Contando Estrelas.

October 22, 2014
Il Lombardia 2014 Post-race Impressions: Martin Takes Another Monument as Valverde, Others Hesitate in the Final Moments

Dan Martin closed out the year’s final Monument Classic with panache, jumping clear of a select bunch inside the last kilometer to deny some fast finishers in the group a chance to sprint for the win. New changes to Il Lombardia’s route certainly played their part in deciding the eventual winner of the race, with none of the many elite uphill specialists on the startlist able to get much separation on the climbs, but that didn’t deter the 27-year-old Irish star: he hung with the lead group and launched a brilliant late strike on the final flat to take the win while many of the of favorites simply watched him fly past. Martin may not have taken as many big results this season as he would have hoped, but his second Monument victory shouldn’t really come as a surprise, as he has flashed his great ability on numerous occasions throughout the year, only to be derailed several times by untimely crashes. After a great ride in La Fleche Wallonne, Martin looked to be in a great position to nab another Monument in the ensuing Liege-Bastogne-Liege and his first Grand Tour Top 10 in the Giro d’Italia. Crashes took him out of contention in both races, but he picked up his first Grand Tour Top 10 (in the Vuelta) and now he’s won that second Monument anyway. An explosive climber with a special talent for the one-day races and currently in his prime, Martin should be a major threat in the hilly classics for years to come.

Movistar’s Alejandro Valverde has been a major threat in the hilly classics for years already, but he followed a familiar script in Il Lombardia, hoping for a reduced sprint at the end of a tough day; that plan didn’t work in Ponferrada last week (where a lack of cohesion in a strong chasing group left Valverde and Simon Gerrans sprinting for the lower steps of the podium behind Michal Kwiatkowski), and it failed again here. As strong as Valverde has been in 2014, his results have included a whole lot of near misses, but I’m not sure he plans on changing his approach any time soon.

Rui Costa landed another big result in a season also filled with near misses, but it can’t be said that he hasn’t given 100% trying to turn those close calls into wins: just as was the case in Montreal, where he finished 2nd, he made the attempt to jump clear late here but was unable to get any space, and still managed to add a nice result to his palmares. In fact, this was his first ever podium in a Monument Classic.

Tim Wellens of Lotto Belisol has been a revelation this year, and his 4th place in Il Lombardia is a nice addition to his already impressive list of achievements in 2014. He has explosiveness and has performed well on difficult profiles throughout the season. He tried to escape from the lead group over the Bergamo Alta, and though he did not succeed, his Top 5 finish in the company of an Olympic champion, a World Champion, and multiple Monument winners is something to be proud of.

The parcours of the new route was not as favorable to Joaquim Rodriguez, who could only manage 8th place after dominating this race in back-to-back years. Fellow climbing specialist Fabio Aru was confident coming into this race and earned a lot of attention as a potential contender, but the last two climbs just weren’t hard enough to launch the pure climbers to victory, and the young Italian had to settle for 9th.

Another rider who will be disappointed with his day in Italy is newly crowned World Champ Michal Kwiatkowski. He spent much of the day very close to the front of the peloton, looking to be in good shape, and with the way the race played out, one might have expected a strong challenge for victory from Kwiatkowski, but he was badly affected by cramps in the last 10 kilometers of the race, suddenly cutting the power to his engine just as things started to heat up. It’s not the result he was hoping for, of course, but it’s been a long season for Kwiatkowski, and now he’ll at least have an opportunity to recharge the batteries before what’s sure to be an exciting 2015 in the rainbow jersey.

With Il Lombardia in the rearview mirror, only one race remains on the 2014 WorldTour calendar! Stay tuned for the preview of the Tour of Beijing, and plenty more analysis as the season comes to a close.

-Dane Cash

Photo by MorBCN.

October 5, 2014
World Championship Road Race 2014 Post-race Impressions: Bold Move Pays Off for Kwiatkowski, Other Contenders Let Opportunity Pass Them By

With the big favorites holding back even as the pack crested the penultimate climb, it looked like it might be a less-than-thrilling finale at this year’s World Championships, but everything changed when Michal Kwiatkowski divebombed the circuit’s second to last descent, caught up with a fading break up the road, sailed past them, and stayed clear over the final kilometers. At the end of the day, a familiar trio, the exact same three that had stood on the podium in April’s Liege-Bastogne-Liege, received the medals at Worlds, but with a crucial difference: Michal Kwiatkowski came away with the win, having made a gutsy escape from his rivals and held on for victory.

Takeaways from the Elite Men’s Road Race

Michal Kwiatkowski took plenty of victories this season, in Strade Bianchi and in the prologue of the Tour de Romandie, for instance, but the big one-day race wins eluded him, just barely. He was quite impressive in the Ardennes in particular, but despite being inside the Top 5 in all three races, he was unable to grab the top spot on the podium in any of them. Now, he’s got his marquee one-day victory. He did it with the help of a dedicated Polish team that spent a lot of time setting the pace early, doing more than a little damage to wear down the peloton. In the preview, I mentioned Kwiatkowski’s support squad as something not to be underestimated. Thanks mostly to Kwiatkowski himself and countryman Rafal Majka and the bevy of WorldTour points they racked up in their stellar seasons, the team was well-staffed in this Worlds, and it showed. They made the race hard, and they kept their man at the front and out of trouble during a hectic day. Even with that strong support, however, it still took a massive effort to win the race. The performance highlighted the amazing completeness of Kwiatkowski’s skillset: his descending skills, which allowed him to open up the initial gap to the peloton, his explosiveness, which allowed him to break free from would-be hangers-on in the group up the road, and his climbing and soloing abilities, which allowed him to maintain his gap over the final climb and all the way to the line. A true all-rounder, Kwiatkowski will have plenty of opportunities to take more wins over the next 364 days while holding the title of World Champion.

With a kilometer to go in the race, Alejandro Valverde and Simon Gerrans were both well-positioned to fight for the victory, but in the end they were left battling for the lower steps of the podium. Given the small gap between Kwiatkowski and his chasers, it’s hard not to criticize the poor cooperation in the group behind: Philippe Gilbert was really the only rider putting in any work in the final few minutes, and had he received any help from the rest of the group, it’s quite possible that we would have a different rainbow jersey wearer in 2015. Given the stellar form of Simon Gerrans, he may have even been able to put in a few pulls and still won the sprint. Podium places are nice, but this was a serious dropping of the ball.

Another World Championship without a win for Fabian Cancellara, for whom this is always such an important race. He missed the move in the final lap and never had a chance after that, landing a disappointing 11th (though, outsprinting Ben Swift, Sonny Colbrelli, Michael Matthews, and Ramunas Navardauskas is actually rather impressive, another sign of a vastly improved finishing kick late in Cancellara’s career, even if it wasn’t worth much at all). Meanwhile, Classics rival Peter Sagan didn’t feature; the form was a question mark coming in, and it turned out that he just couldn’t make a difference in the end.

One rider who did manage to just eke out a Top 10 performance was Nacer Bouhanni: it may be a minor footnote in the history of this race, which will be remembered for Kwiatkowski’s brilliant escape, but the fact that Bouhanni managed to stick with the pack over 254.8 hilly kilometers is a big deal. His ride in Ponferrada, coupled with several nice showings on some of the Vuelta’s hillier stages, will help his confidence on the more difficult days moving forward.

For the second year running, and the third time and four years, the winner of the World Championship Road Race did not ride in the Vuelta. Neither did the runner-up, for that matter. Nor the rider who won the bunch sprint behind the escapees. The Vuelta has long been considered the optimal preparation for Worlds, but clearly, times are changing.

The Italian team didn’t have anyone inside the Top 10. I didn’t find that particularly surprising given their team selection, which I questioned from the start. They just didn’t seem to really understand the parcours, leaving riders like Pippo Pozzato and Giacomo Nizzolo at home and focusing their team around Vincenzo Nibali, for whom this was not a particularly well-tailored profile.

Lastly, a word on the Danes. Matti Breschel put in his fourth Top 7 performance in a Worlds Road Race. Big results in other races on the pro calendar are pretty rare for the 30-year-old, but he always seems to be in the mix in the biggest one-day race of the year. Meanwhile, teammate Michael Valgren spent a lot of time out front in Ponferrada, doing much of the work driving the pace in a group of escapees. He still managed to land 20th overall. The 22-year-old, closing out his first season with Tinkoff-Saxo, has a bright future ahead of him.

Check back soon for the preview of Il Lombardia, the season’s final Monument Classic!

-Dane Cash

Photos by Sean Rowe.

September 29, 2014