Tweet not found
The embedded tweet could not be found…
PREVIEW | Cyclocross Troyes 2023 World Cup Men&Women - Favourites, Track, TV Guide & Poll
CyclocrossSunday, 19 November 2023 at 10:43
Preview. Round 4 of the Cyclocross World Cup will take place in Troyes. The riders will take on a track where big differences can be made in what should be another muddy race.
The course we'll have in Troyes is a classic. We've got planks, we've got stairs, we've got camber and off-camber sections. It's a race with very little climbing, where the differences will be made in these features, which are stringed across in a course that has plenty sharp turns and small descents off banks.
The European Championships also took place in France and on a similar track. There, the rain turned the track from a fast one to a muddy one where climbing was quite tougher. We've got rain on the forecast and the track will not be dry, but simultaneously it shouldn't be boggy as other circuits have over the past few weeks. Tactics are possible, a lot of the track is narrow and features bank sections where teammates can let gaps go. I wouldn't say that it's one where the winning differences will be made either early or late, but one where halfway through the race someone will feel they have the legs to take it up a notch and make the winning move.
Map Troyes World Cup 2023
Recon World Cup Troyes 2023. Via Puck Pieterse / Youtube
A technical and explosive course is going to suit Puck Pieterse. The multi-discipline phenomenon is back after a month-long break away from cyclocross and I expect good form, as most top riders are able to achieve that even without the racing. The Dutch rider does not have the fatigue of other big favourites into this race as she wasn't in Merksplas, which balances out her lack of recent racing. Her two big rivals will certainly be World Cup leader Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado, last week's winner in Dendermonde, and Lucinda Brand who was second both there and this Saturday in Merksplas.
Zoe Bäckstedt took her first World Cup podium last week and should also be in the fight. It won't be as muddy of a course however at this point it is very viable to see her again in the battle. Sara Casasola, who was bronze in the Europeans, could be very well suited to this track as well since it's characteristics will be so similar. The Dutch contingent will hunt for a medal too: Inge van der Heijden, Manon Bakker, Annemarie Worst and Denise Betsema. Outside of them we've got Top10 contenders in Marion Norbert Riberolle, Hélene Clauzel, Marie Schreiber, Kristyna Zemanová and Maghalie Rochette.
It will be an interesting race where Baloise - Trek Lions have got good chances, and will be the team to beat. Tactics can be used and they have four victory contenders. Four winners on their list. Joris Nieuwenhuis won this Saturday in Merksplas with an impressive performance in the mud. Last week Pim Ronhaar had an even more impressive brilliant win in Dendermonde. Both have strong hopes to perform here but come as secondary cards. Lars van der Haar is the most consistent out of their riders and was the winner in Maasmechelen, he stands a good chance of winning a second World Cup round. They won all three World Cup rounds with three different riders, the other was Thibau Nys who has a suiting track to his abilities, but may struggle with the tough weather conditions that are expected.
It will be hard for other teams to contest. Eli Iserbyt has been riding with good form but has been beaten by all of the above, and seems to be the best of the rest - with Michael Vanthourenhout out of the race with illness. Laurens Sweeck will want to perform but an 8th spot in Merksplas was not a good sign, Niels Vandeputte and Felipe Orts performed quite well and will have a good track for their specialty as technical riders, they can both end up in the fight for the podium. Add Gerben Kuypers, Kevin Kuhn, Jens Adams, Toon Vandebosch and Witse Meeussen to the fight for top spots.
The women's race will start at 13:40 local time and is estimated to finish at 14:30 local time. The men's race is set to start at 15:10 local time and is estimated to finish at around 16:15 local time.
You can watch the broadcast of the race at the UCI website; GCN+/Eurosport Player internationally. The channels which will broadcast the race will include Telenet PlaySports and Proximus (Belgium), Flobikes (Canada), NOS.nl (Netherlands), L'Équipe (France), Ceská Televize (Czech Republic), RaiPlay (Italy), TV2 Danmark (Denmark) and TV2 Norge (Norway).
PREDICTIONS:
Women's Elite
*** Puck Pieterse
** Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado, Lucinda Brand
* Zoe Bäckstedt, Sara Casasola, Annemarie Worst
Men's Elite
*** Lars van der Haar
** Pim Ronhaar, Eli Iserbyt
* Joris Nieuwenhuis, Niels Vandeputte, Thibau Nys
Preview written by Rúben Silva.
Read also
Poll
Poll
It's time to meet the French city of Troyes 😎 A new venue for Round 4️⃣ of the 2023/24 @UCIcyclocrossWC season! Stay tuned and don't miss any of the action this Sunday 19 November 🙌 #CXWorldCup
claps 1visitors 441
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- There is a cyclist, recently retired who raced as a Junior in 1997, and is known as 'The Goat'. Downhill legend, Greg Minnaar......wipperman9530-12-2024
- The road bias of this site shows up as PFP isn't mentioned - who is as successful as Vos, and from memory has more World titles.wipperman9530-12-2024
- his wife was surprisingly accurateabstractengineer30-12-2024
- Its the wrong thing to do the Vuelta after getting exhausted in the TDF. This is going to reduce his career potentialabstractengineer30-12-2024
- And you missed that I wasn’t contradicting but enhancing or adding to the discussion :-) I am surprised MJ made it that far without some of this having been picked up earlier. To further make my point, yes, by all means correct/improve anything that you can later in life but like disease, think of prevention before asking for cures, even in cycling a lot is crucial at the early stages but unfortunately, unlike athletics, cycling is a sport that rarely takes (youth) coaching seriously, if at all, it’s basically each to himself and we’ll pick the better ones once there’s enough development. About the only thing young cyclists get forced to learn is to ride with high cadence and that isn’t even coach induced but almost institutionalised. And as I tried to imply, no matter how much you perfect technique, we are all absolutely unique in our mechanical motions, you just have to watch the posture and strides of runners to note how dissimilar each is, and a crucial point to always remember is that by trying to force a better technique you may gain something somewhere but lose more elsewhere, you have to know whether it leaves you « comfortably within your natural boundaries « , eg, no point to improve your saddle position for more aerodynamicity if you’re going to have to ride uncomfortably for hours coz your mental state will drag more on your performance than your aerodynamics gain.Mistermaumau30-12-2024
- this isn’t really a discussion about cycling anymore, but that’s cool. so, i live in the united states. there are a lot of things that i don’t like about the way things work or fail to work here, especially compared to many other developed democracies. but one thing the united states does do well is it secures an extraordinarily high level of free speech. now, am i disgusted by the likes of alex jones and how he USES that freedom of speech? you bet. and there are infinite examples of people saying things i’m disgusted and outraged by. but unless someone is going to hand over control to censorOCexile30-12-2024
- I feel you missed my point - those who can be coached and can change can improve with new insights. And it helps to have people who see what needs to change to move that along. I’m focusing on the biomechanical expert in the article, without whom Jorgensen wouldn’t have improved. Context matters.RidesHills30-12-2024
- Yes, but also what eyes can’t do. I was an athletics coach for kids for years and you can see and try to correct as many faults as there are but some requirements are just not possible. It’s very hard to visualize but we all know from experiences, in sport, the most obvious one is the swimming conundrum, you can never become a top level swimmer unless your body grew into it young, maybe gymnastics would be similar. And outside sport, it’s as easy as learning to twitch your ear, if you can ;-)Mistermaumau30-12-2024
- Look, I respect your view but you need to question them out of principle too so I’m going to ask you to ask yourself the same question as someone else, should a living Adolf have been given a platform for discussing war tactics? Should Alex Jones have been allowed to continue his Sandy Hook accusations? Somewhere along a scale society has to draw lines, individuals in their head don’t but the internet is open, it’s society, those who want to exchange non-compatible societal IDEAS can still do so, in private amongst themselves but not market them publicly. Besides wasn’t it part of the deal he was not to be involved in cycling? A public show about cycling seems to fly in the face of that but I guess as so often, it was a poorly worded « contract » and with a lack of morals, limits were bound to be tested, again ;-)Mistermaumau30-12-2024
- Well, perhaps we still consider sport* to be more of a men’s thing? * I have to say that watching my partner at her badminton club that seems to be one of the rare sports where a more balanced attitude is ambivalent, perhaps because most prefer to play mixed doubles at that level and it’s a very social sport at club level and each match type has equal weighting towards a tournament total?Mistermaumau30-12-2024