Following the #TreValliVaresine riders from the wheel of our #BMW. Photo: @BeelWout
"This is and remains a bad image for the race" - Quick-Step DS questions Tre Valli Varesine race organisers after mid-race cancellation
CyclingWednesday, 09 October 2024 at 10:54
In miserable, wet and downright dangerous conditions at Tre Valli Varesine 2024 this Tuesday afternoon, only after the women's race had been completed and nearly 60km of the men's race in the legs, the decision was finally made to cancel this year's edition.
For some, the decision came as a relief, with riders rushing into the warmth and safety of their respective team buses once the cancellation was confirmed. For others though, thoughts immediately turned to how things could, and maybe should, have been done differently. One such voice of discontent came from Soudal - Quick-Step sports director, Klaas Lodewyck.
"The bad weather that was predicted yesterday and this morning also got to us. Then you know it's dangerous racing. So I really don't understand why there was another lap here," he ponders in post-race quotes collected by HLN. "That water bomb caused manhole covers to come off on the descent. For the same money, 30 riders could have crashed there. Knowing that someone else died at the World Championship in Switzerland, I can't quite get my head around that," he adds, referring to Muriel Furrer's tragic death in the women's junior road race in Zurich recently.
“But it’s like always: one wanted to race, the other didn’t. A decision is never made as a whole. And then you have something like this of course," Lodewyck concludes, even coming up with a proposal he believes could have made everyone happy. "Because this is and remains a bad image for the race of course. The organization wanted to do an extra lap to have the promised better weather, but the riders didn’t like that. They could have just postponed the race a bit longer. Then we would have seen a good two hours of beautiful racing.”
For the likes of Soudal - Quick-Step's Remco Evenepoel and pre-race favourite Tadej Pogacar, attention now turns to the weekend and to the final monument of the season... Il Lombardia.
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- yeah, that’s a more fair assessment. “reaching mathieu’s level” doesn’t mean you’re planning to replicate his whole career. the former IS doable, potentially. it’s just the latter that likely is not.OCexile25-12-2024
- That’s not entirely true. Every person follows their own development path and peaks differently. Remco and Primoz had hardly started cycling before elite level. Jonas was pretty much under the radzr until he unexpectedly had to take over responsibility at JV. Some guys only get real good in their thirties others have peaked mid-twenties. You can’t tell in advance how and upto what level they will progress, obviously his career might not have MVDPs length but nothing says he could not end up doing a few seasons at his level.Mistermaumau25-12-2024
- well, del grosso is 21 right now. when mathieu was a year younger than that, he was already winning elite level world championships, not U23. i think del grosso will be a very good pro for years, but if he was really going to be the next van der poel someday, he’d already have to be at that level right NOW. van der poel was showing signs of true greatness when he was 15-16. THAT’S what generational talent looks like.OCexile25-12-2024
- Yeah.... gear 😅.mikolajjj24-12-2024
- It shouldn’t be about expectations in the first place should it? Besides, if you look at everyone’s calculations as a whole they don’t add up in the first place. There’ll be 2-3 riders with a 50% chance, a dozen with 10 or 20% and dozens more with a 5% so we’re expecting at least 2 if not 3 winners. Remind me again who won before her? Says it all about using data to decide on participation.Mistermaumau24-12-2024
- Ok, happy I’m not too interested in this team coz’ the account of what happened is really hard to follow.Mistermaumau24-12-2024
- The UCI is worse than USA CyclingVeganpotter24-12-2024
- It's not like they wanted her to not win😅 She had an outstanding Olympics. But there's a reason why she wasn't expected to win the road race and that's ok. Things like this happen and it's great...better than seeing expected winners win.Veganpotter24-12-2024
- Bruyneel ? The man with a lifetime ban from cycling...why do you keep giving him and his doper mate, Armstrong, a platform?DJ24-12-2024
- yeah, agree. on the subject of being a “complete rider,” i do think that’s getting more interesting. mathieu seems to have decided he wants to get much better at climbing the the high mountain passes. he appears to be looking for new challenges, which should be interesting to watch. in most cases you’d dismiss a goal like that at age 30, but it’s mvdp. he’s never going to climb with the real climbers, but if he can improve enough it could open up stage wins when the parcours isnt just purely toothy and punchy.OCexile24-12-2024