"This is and remains a bad image for the race" - Quick-Step DS questions Tre Valli Varesine race organisers after mid-race cancellation
Cycling
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.
Kieran WoodDeputy Editor-in-Chief
Kieran Wood is a sports journalist based in Wales and has been active in journalism since 2022. He regularly contributes to DartsNews.com and CyclingUpToDate.com, where he covers professional cycling and darts. In cycling, his work includes liveblogs from major races, including the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, and La Vuelta a España, alongside race reports and analysis. He has also conducted interviews with professional riders.
His reporting spans the full racing calendar, from one-day classics to stage races, with a focus on accurate, real-time coverage and clear contextual analysis. For statistics, results, and historical context, he regularly uses resources such as ProCyclingStats. To support reporting on rider activity and training context where relevant, he also references Strava.
In his work, Kieran places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles as new, verified information becomes available.
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- On a positive note, you maybe notice turning this topic into a discussion has the benefit of eliminating certain participants who do not see how they can turn it back to their sole interest ;-)Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
- People see what they want to. I am actually the opposite of your accusation, probably more of a rebel than most of you who don’t get the big picture. The difference is, I don’t go moaning publicly about the consequences of my transgressions, I understand the need for rules and I take my OWN responsibility when deciding to ignore or break them or doing so involuntarily. I will also not hesitate to state my case or argue vehemently when relevant, sometimes it works, sometimes it makes things worse but that’s the price to pay for principles and having character.Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
- That may be but that was unknown to others and nothing says that’s the whole truth. Again, don’t try to misinterpret, it is a call and technically it is correct. Besides, even if there is a valid reason, that does not disqualify the ruling or punishment as far as the rules have been developed. I don’t think they’re as far as in football where for handball there is a distinction (in some ways and specific cases) between intentional or not. And football can be just as harsh and people live with it, eg the offside rule, also judged to within tiny fractions but often wrong or ignored. It’s the nature of every collective organisation and sometimes I wonder if our rebellion against it isn’t seated in the feelings we carry from the injustices we’ve felt personally, like being flashed driving 1km/h too fast when we are explained limits are just a security measure but we are absolutely certain not to have endangered anyone with our transgression. The problem is, nobody has better solutions and no 2 people have the same interpretation of where a limit should be.Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
- Because for you deviated implies the other rider MUST have been made to fall and fail to finish ??? I don’t know if you ride a bike but next time someone carves you up or drives dangerously close, just hold back from those feelings of changing something, reporting or filming or even complaining. Everyone will just say, hey you’re still here undamaged, doesn’t seem like anyone did anything.Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
- And we, what are we doing?Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
- And yet, it attracts people, even you. What’s more, it attracts the rival fanboys to fill cyberspace with endless pointless my hero is better than your hero blabla that’s all been heard before and only helps sell the site as an advertising platform. You know what the solution is but most can’t resist. No different than women who follow and discuss celebs through gossip magazines.Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
- he is doing 460 watts for 35 min to achieve 7 w/kg with VO2 at 96 , just unreal numbers.abstractengineer08-11-2026
- Just do it, and put up with the consequencesJumpyjohn08-11-2026
- "was a headliner at the Tour de France" Nobody cared about Piddie. Only rivals that were there for Pogi, Jonas, Remco, Sexias, Lipo, Del Toro and they were all expected to lose. Piddie was not even in any conversation.abstractengineer08-11-2026
- exactly, he had an amazing season, but with these overstatements they don‘t do him good.Ketterechts08-11-2026
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Following the #TreValliVaresine riders from the wheel of our #BMW. Photo: @BeelWout
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