This is the start of a new regular piece I’m planning to write weekly summarising the main talking points about the previous week’s racing and general pro-cycling news. Treat it as a ‘what you might have missed’ or a short recap to quickly get to grips with all the interesting happenings. I’m intending to do this every Sunday night or Monday depending on availability and the format and features might evolve based on what people like to catch up on.
One-Day Races
On the back of the world championships, it was time to get back to the rescheduled classics races starting with the hilly classics in a departure from the normal race order we have in the spring. Up first was La Flèche Wallonne with its famous finish atop the Mur de Huy. No previous winner was on the start list, so it was chance for those in form to add their names to the record books. The rider who stepped up was Marc Hirschi of Team Sunweb. Fresh from his glorious Tour de France and his podium at the world championships, the 22 year old had the power to surge away from Benoît Cosnefroy and Michael Woods to continue his impressive season. There was also an impressive showing from Mauri Vansevenant, a 21 year old new signing at Deceuninck – Quick Step. He was the last man standing from the break of the day and could have gone all the way if not for an unlucky crash with just over 4km to go.
At the weekend it was time for one of the big ones, the 106th Liège-Bastogne-Liège. There were some legendary riders on the start line with Marc Hirschi, Julian Alaphilippe, Primož Roglič and Tadej Pogačar all present. And it would be these four riders who would fight it out at the end joined by Matej Mohorič who appeared from nowhere in the final 2km. Mohorič would catch the quartet in the final few hunderd metres only to provide a perfect springboard for the others to launch their sprints. It was Alaphilippe who would roll the dice first with Hirschi close behind, but a deviation from his sprinting line would ruin Hirschi’s and Pogačar’s chances leaving the line open to Alaphilippe to take the win, or so he thought. The newly crowned world champion would celebrate too early and it was Roglič who rocketed up the right hand side to claim his maiden monument win. There was more bad news for Alaphilippe as he would be rightly relegated for his irregular sprint and he finished 5th in the end. Excellent result for Roglič, but we’re left feeling what might have been for Hirschi and Pogačar had their sprints not been interrupted.
In the women’s editions it would be Anna van der Breggen who would defend her Flèche Wallonne title in emphatic style. The 30 year old Boels – Dolmans rider and double world champion now has six consecutive titles in the race. She was unable to follow up on her recent form at Liège-Bastogne-Liège however, as Elizabeth Deignan would surge away from her rivals on the Côte de la Redoute to win her first monument. The Trek-Segafredo rider was pushed hard by Mitchelton’s Grace Brown and the winning margin was only nine seconds in the end.
Stage Racing
There was one major stage race last week, which was unfortunately disrupted by increased Covid restrictions in The Netherlands. The Binck Bank Tour was supposed to visit the country on stages two and four, for a time trial and one of the key GC stages, but both were cancelled. The race stayed in Belgium then and five stages became four as one of the cancelled stages was redesigned into a time trial to spice up the end of the race. Each stage featured a different winner with the two sprints going to Jasper Philipsen and Mads Pedersen with both riders enjoying a day or two in the leaders jersey. Søren Kragh Andersen won the rescheduled time trial, but didn’t grab the lead from Pedersen. It came down to Mathieu van der Poel and a daring 50km attack on a circuit including the Muur van Geraardsbergen to win the stage from Oliver Naesen and take the race lead by eight seconds. It was a scintillating finale and I thoroughly recommend catching up with some highlights.
It was also the start of the second grand tour of the year and it’s due to be a really unpredictable race. Four stages in and pre-race favourite Geraint Thomas has abandoned the race with a fractured pelvis after hitting a bidon in the neutral zone at the start of stage three. Jakob Fuglsang has also suffered misfortune in the form of losing his two most valuable teammates. Vlasov and Lopez would be been worth their weight in gold come the Alps in week three, but now Fuglsang will have to manage with his five remaining helpers. Simon Yates had a bad day on stage three and lost several minutes to his rival, but away from the negative news, the racing has been excellent! There is only a two second gap between first and second on GC after stage four with the pink jersey currently on the back of Giro debutant João Almeida. He and second place Caicedo even fought it out for bonus seconds at the second intermediate sprint on stage four and if this is the kind of fight we can see throughout the whole Giro then we’re in for a treat.
Rider of the Week
I think I have to give this inaugural honour to Marc Hirschi this week after victory at La Flèche Wallonne and a podium in Liège-Bastogne-Liège. It’s probably a really close run thing between Hirschi and Mathieu van der Poel after the latter’s win at the Binck Bank Tour and subsequent sixth place in Liège as well, but Hirschi’s performances at such a young age are quite extraordinary. This is Hirschi’s second year as a professional and he has erupted onto the scene thanks to a brilliant Tour de France debut and he has followed that up with third at the world championships and then his success in Belgium last week. This is more proof that the future is looking very bright indeed for professional cycling.
Next Week in Cycling
The classics season continues with De Brabantse Pijl for both the men and women on Wednesday and the start of the refreshed cobbled classics campaign with Gent-Wevelgem on Sunday, again for both men and women. Also on Sunday is Paris – Tour Elite, further indication of how condensed the calendar is right now. Stage racing continues with stages five to nine of the Giro d’Italia, the stages at the weekend look especially tasty, but there’s something for all sorts of riders over the coming days and we can probably expect more exciting racing.
That’s all from me! A little late getting this out this week, but I intend to wrote one of these each Sunday evening. Let me know what you think or if you’d like to see something else included here. I’ll probably be thinking of other information to include myself that would be of value to you, but any tips are greatly appreciated. I also plan on redesigning my homepage somewhat to make it easier to find things, especially if I keep adding new content. But for now just have a good week everyone, and enjoy the racing!
The Pelotonian 