Although Jarno Widar kicked off the Tour de l'Avenir quite well. There were early signs that he's not in his best when he lost the first mountain stage sprint to Joe Blackmore. On the next day Widar managed to consolidate the damage, however the large offensive of his opponents left him helpless, losing a lot of time on the penultimate stage and finally, the 18-year-old talent snapped on Colle delle Finestre and completely backed off the GC.
"I was exhausted, you can see that in my results," Widar opened up to DirectVelo on Saturday after his collapse. "I've ridden too many races. I told the team two months ago that I'm riding too many races, but they didn't listen to me and now we're seeing where that leads. This week really showed that I should have trained more and ridden fewer races," is the harsh conclusion that the Belgian talent draws.
National coach of the Belgian team, Sven Vanthourenhout, looks at the disappointing tour of Widar's future with a different eye. "It may not be so bad for him, since the expectations around him were getting higher and higher," the national coach opens the debates.
"Just because he didn't win the Tour de l'Avenir, doesn't mean he doesn't have a brilliant future ahead of him. He has to learn from a race like this and these kinds of disappointments. We are all very proud of Jarno, but he just wasn't ready for this race."
Widar does not want to know anything about giving up. "I will come back here next year and then I will try again," the Belgian promises combatively. Widar also already knows what the plans are for the rest of the calendar year 2024. "I will only ride the World Championship and the U23 Lombardia. So I only focus on the big goals and not on the smaller races anymore."
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