Cycling Worlds In Review

Hi All,

These last 5 nights have featured the UCI World Cycling Championships in Geelong, Australia. Unfortunately for us North Americans, that meant late night starts and even later night finishes for the 6 events that were held. However, for us few fans that stayed up late and watched foreign-language webstreams (thank you Flemish television for not restricting your viewership), it did provide some great entertainment. All 6 events had some great drama, cumulating with last night's unbelievable Men's Road Race.

It all kicked off Tuesday evening, with the U23 Men and Elite Women time trial events. Two names of interest during these events were Taylor Phinney in the U23 event and Edmontonian Tara Whitten in the Womens race. Phinney, at only 20 years of age, has already won multiple world championships in various track events (currently defending world champion in the individual pursuit) and is just starting to take his talents to the road. He even finished the 2010 season racing with Team RadioShack. He went into the event as probably the favorite, and did not disappoint, winning by over 2 seconds. Phinney is a future cycling superstar, maybe not the next lance or Contador, but he could win big races like Cancellara and Boonen. Canada's top finisher was David Boily (who rides for Spidertech) in 25th place.

For most riders, the World Championships is a year-ending event. For Tara Whitten, it's a warm up. After competing in both the time trial and road race in Australia, she's off to India to compete for Canada in the Commonwealth Games. Whitten, the current World Champion in 2 events on the track, will be competing in both road and track events in India, for a total of 6 separate competitions! She's the Michael Phelps of the bicycle world. Can she win multiple medals? In the Worlds Time Trial, Whitten was a medal contender, clocking the 2nd best time at the first checkpoint before fading to 7th. She was actually beaten by the remarkable Jeannie Longo, who at age 52 continues to dominate against women who weren't born when she won her first World Championship in 1985.

Then it was time for the Elite Men Time Trial. Current world champion Fabian Cancellara had the honour of going last, and didn't disappoint, blowing apart the field as he chewed up the 45.6 km course to win his 4th world title. He led after every checkpoint but the first one, and won by over a minute even after celebrating down the finishing stretch. Compare that to the U23 and Womens winners who won by 2 and 15 seconds. He is almost unbeatable right now in events that he aims for. 2010 has been a great year for Fabian and will once again get to the rainbow stripes in every time trial in 2010. David Millar and Tony Martin rounded out the podium, while Canadian Svein Tuft, who was seeded 7th and won a silver medal in this event only 2 years ago, could only manage a 26th place finish in what he called "the worst day of his life". He too is on his way to the Commonwealth Games and will hopefully bring home a medal for Canada there...

The next night featured the U23 Road Race, and it was being watched by the Elite Men for several reasons. Obviously, it would showcase the next generation of cycling stars, but there was a lot of interest to see if the difficult course would break up the peloton and enable a breakaway to succeed. The difficult course (one large and one shorter hill per lap) did wear down the peloton, but it did end with 46 riders together (out of the 97 finishers). Australian rider Michael Matthews won the sprint, but the real battle was for bronze between Taylor Phinney and Canadian rider Guillaume Boivin. Check this out picture...

At 2/1000th of a second, they couldn't determine who won bronze (the other rider is the silver medalist from Germany), so both Boivin and Phinney shared the Bronze medal. It is only the third medal from a Canadian male at a World Championship (with Tuft's 2008 silver in the TT and Steve Bauer's bronze in the 1984 Road Race.

Boivin is quite a talent for only being 21, having won races in Canada, Cuba, and Europe this season. He also had a Top 10 finish during a stage of the Tour of California this year. He is a great talent, and as SpiderTech aims to upgrade to a Pro Continental team in 2011, Boivin will be a huge part of their future. There is a great interview with him here...

The women's road race also came down to a sprint finish, with Italian Giorgia Bronzini winnning. Tara Whitten managed to make the final group, but had nothing left for the sprint, finishing in 15th place. Erinne Willock of Canada finished 23rd.

The big event was the Elite Mens Road Race. Hometown favorite Cadel Evans was trying to defend his 2009 title, but the pre-race favorites also included the leaders of the powerful Italian team (Fillipo Pozzato) and Spanish team (3-time winner Oscar Freire) plus one-day riders like Philippe Gilbert from Belgium, who might have been the favorite heading into this race. The race started off very slowly, as 4 riders actually got a 23 minute lead on the slow-moving peloton early on, but as they closed in on the finish line 262 km away, the peloton closed in. As they completed their 11 laps on the finishing circuit, the peloton kept losing riders as the speed and the hills kept claiming victims. It was in the last 30 or so km that the field really split up, with the Italians working hard to keep the group small. Eventually, riders like Evans and Gilbert both has short-lived solo breakaways but they were always swallowed back up by the remaining riders. Gilbert was the last to be caught, with less the 2 km to go. But like the U23 and Womens race, it did become a sprint finish, and it was the God of Thunder, Thor Hushovd, who hopped around the group to power away and win the World title! Congrats to Thor, who was joined on the podium by Matti Breschel (Denmark) and Allan Davis (Asutralia), for finally winning Norways's first ever World Cycling title! Pozzato finished 4th and Freire 6th, while Evans and Gilbert finished at the back of the lead group. Canada's Svein Tuft was our only finisher in 85th place, while Christian Meier and Dominique both did not finish.

More to come, as always...