"The last two years I was in the best Classics team" - Jan Tratnik does battle with former Visma teammates in quest for back-to-back Omloop Het Nieuwsblad wins
Cycling
Jan Tratnik sensationally sealed the win at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in 2024. Now, twelve months on, the Slovenian is back to defend his crown, only this time in the colours of a new team, having swapped Team Visma | Lease a Bike for Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe.
"I feel good, so yeah, no complaints," a smiling Tratnik says to reporters in his pre-race interview. With a strong Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe team around Tratnik, the opportunity is certainly there for the Slovenian to go back-to-back at the Omloop. "We have some young guys, they just arrived from altitude training camp and as I heard, they are more than ready. In general as a team, we are strong. So yeah, I hope that we can compete with the best but for sure, what I know is that we will give everything that is in our power to deliver the best possible result."
In Tratnik's quest for victory though, his former team are likely to be his main challengers. "The last two years I was in the best Classics team and maybe somethings were a bit easier," he analyses. "But I know that this year, maybe things will be a bit harder, but I still believe that it's possible. We just need to fight and then we'll see where we are standing."
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- I don’t know how generalised it is but in every race in every country I’ve participated in you either need to show a club licence (which you only get by having a medical around every 2-3 years) or by having a doctors’ aptitude certificate. Can’t ask for much more. Don’t forget, 15000 people (of which quite some are well into the latter part of life), that’s a small town where people will have medical issues every day even without cycling hard. In one country I lived in you even have to do a full ECG and power test regularly to ride competitively after 50.Mistermaumau05-04-2025
- Before or after their kids get married to each other ;-)Mistermaumau05-04-2025
- Ok guys, both of you, this is far too complex to debate as a whole as there are dozens of variables and none of the conditions have been rigidly defined, what’s more, everyone is looking at things from a different angle and for a different purpose so let’s go back to the real basics first to see if we can agree on some starting principles. If you throw a golf ball or ping pong ball (assuming same size here) at the same speed in the same direction, which is going to land further? Ditto if you launch them with the same power? If two identical riders of 70 and 80kg (lets assume the extra 10kg is just bones and drinks and lunch) on identical bikes ride side by side at speed X with zero wind (or alternatively a really strong head wind) and both stop pedalling at the same time, which is going to roll further or come to a stop sooner? The wind force does inevitably come into play but I want to keep an open mind as to the effect it has in situ in practice because it obviously isn’t the only criteria and with acem82’s example it’s highly likely that wind is more minor but that wouldn’t be true for every real-life situation. Regarding cobbles, that’s an extremely complex motion to analyse, you can call it bouncing or hopping or climbing or what you like but in reality it’s indescribable and only high precision analysis can tell you exactly how much of each effect is contributing for each rider at each speed and every tire pressure/behaviour, you will NEVER manage to say that one criteria alone governs the whole efficiency equation.Mistermaumau05-04-2025
- Medical test should be mandatory before participationabstractengineer05-04-2025
- You are completely wrongvappaxbipmv05-04-2025
- Tadej has a little more chance. It will be an exciting race and the most important thing is that no one gets hurt.
maria2024202405-04-2025 - Whatever happens tomorrow... it'll be a hell of a raceslappers6605-04-2025
- Exactly Tadej, the cancer of modern society. Full of good-for-nothing people who gain visibility and importance on social media mocking, humiliating (and worse things) to earn money. But it's the follower's fault, no followers, no "influencers".maria2024202405-04-2025
- Great commentCaralladas05-04-2025
- i’m such a sucker for those group-hug, happy ending moments between competitors, largely because it’s so WASN’T that way in my younger, stronger days. (on that note, i have this hope that somewhere down the road, maybe fifteen or twenty years, a middle aged wout and mathieu will go for a pleasure ride together in flanders, and reminisce about the days when they were the young, strong monsters that stalked the cobbles.)OCexile05-04-2025