It was a big weekend for racing with national championships (#BatChamps!) taking place hither and yon! Plus it’s the weekend before one of the biggest weekends in the sporting calendar. They shall be departing grandly in Belgium next Saturday. It’s all been fished out of the Twitterstream, including more Bora shower pics!
BATCHAMPS!
One of our Midge’s favourite times of year, the national championships (#batchamps) had its big weekend and here are the results.
Bora cleaned up across Europe (not unlike those shower pictures that we will come to in a minute …) with SIX batchamps in their midst now. (If only they would stop the whole ‘brotherhood is coming’ hashtag – really creepy)
Sam Bennett – party hardy, dude!
Hopefully, Bora will do the Italian champs jersey proud for Davide Formolo – and not like that vertical-striped monstrosity that Vivz wore to the Giro.
Wout‘s done well …
Meanwhile, over in France, we have young Warren Barguil takes (possibly) the most beautiful jersey of the bunch.
Ben Swift takes the British jersey
Jungels! BOB JUNGELS! gets the prize for most outstanding hair … ever!
Then this happened.
If there’s a Van in your name, you’re pretty much a shoo-in
And last but not least, a very popular win for Alex Howes – the new US national road race champion.
But stop a second and think about what the jersey might look like …
Getting ready for green
But one guy who didn’t get a batchamps jersey was Peter Sagan (his brother will be wearing that instead). He has had a good run, though – 8 continuous years of not wearing just a regular, standard-issue team jersey.
But how will we recognise him in the peloton?? After reading about the Bora batchamps, looks like Fidel has it just about right!
Peter just scrubbing up for the grand depart …
This is just downright disturbing – but could we imagine anything less from Daniel Oss?
One thing that I really like about Peter is that he makes himself available to his fans, especially the kids.
Getting ready for yellow (possibly)
With Froome and Dumoulin out of the Tour this year, it feels wide open – and we’re hoping that the GC will be hard fought, right up to the end of the penultimate stage. Will Ineos dominate this year? I’m not so sure …
Jakob Fuglsang is on fire – with a strong team to look after him, who knows what the road will bring for him!
This could be interesting …
While everyone gets ready for hard work
There are some new jersey suggestions. Suggestions we think are fabulous .
And then there’s those who won’t be in France
This one hurts. I love PhilGil and he would have been such a great road captain for the team.
The Gruppetto
Oh Lord …
I want I want!
I think perhaps Chad Haga is looking to be named bat champ …
And speaking of #batchamps