It was the weekend of the World Championships. Although many at VeloVoices Towers believed that there shouldn’t have been a Worlds this year, as the defending champions hardly had any time to race in the rainbow jersey, the UCI took no notice of our protest. We were rewarded, however, with two great road race champions!
King of the World
Wout Van Aert was the hands-down favourite for the rainbow jersey in the road race. But as usual, Julian Alaphilippe had his own plan (aided by Thomas Voeckler) and swashbuckled his way to the finish line.
First of all, the highlights
Alaphilippe wears his heart on his sleeve – both on the road and on the podium.
Crazy like a fox is that Thomas Voeckler
I suspect, Peter Kennaugh, that a certain man named Wout is probably the one person on the planet who isn’t happy that LouLou won.
Lovely message from Mads Pedersen, who unfortunately didn’t get to wear the rainbow into very many races. Let’s hope he wins it again in the years to come and be able to fully enjoy it.
And another former champion with another lovely message.
I’m learning French just to understand what LouLou says!
The years it took to win with such panache.
Nearly!!!!
Wout Van Aert was one of those riders who was tethered to his pre-race favourite title, which meant the other riders weren’t going to work with him to bring back Alaphilippe.
Greg Van Avermaet did put in a valiant effort to try to drop as many riders as possible to give WVA a chance to break away. It was a selfless ride, but it got people wondering about how he would accessorise with rainbows if he won – and more gold if he wins at the Tokyo Olympics. Belinda always makes me laugh.
As Michal Kwiatkowski and Marc Hirschi threw their bikes to the line for the bronze medal, all’s I could think, after his 3 attempts at a stage win in the TdF, that it would be so cruel if he missed out of the Worlds podium by a bike throw. Luckily he didn’t.
Kwiatkowski is such a classy rider. Always ready to praise the guy who beats him to the line.
TT King
Meanwhile, it was an astonishing Men’s ITT race, with Filippo Ganna going all out for gold. Chapeau
Queen of the Worlds
It was an Anna van der Breggen DOUBLE as she scooped up both the TT and the Road Race rainbows for the next year. What a performance!
I’m glad Anna van Vleuten talked about this. Riding through injury, as we’ve seen in the Tour, is almost never a good idea.
Words of wisdom: ‘I just wanted to go as fast as possible towards the finish line‘
Anna has certainly been busy!
The Last Word