Whether this was the toughest course in his career? Bauke Mollema does not have to think long. “Yes, that is very possible.” He is talking to the press on bath slippers, he just worked in a bag of chips – he could use that after a six and a half hour of races. Mollema has just become 21st – the only Dutch rider who has reached the finish. And even he doubted whether he would leave the competition, he says. “What a course.”
The World Championships with the men in Kigali (Rwanda) was exactly the exhaustion stroke that everyone had feared in advance-and perhaps even worse. Tadej Pogacar, the best cyclist in the world, won his second consecutive world title after a solo of 66 kilometers. Secondly, Remco Evenepoel (Belgium), the Irish Ben Healy finished third.
Yet the most remarkable thing about the first World Cup cycling in Africa was not the winner, but the unprecedented battlefield on which the course ended. Only thirty of the 165 riders started the competition – the lowest number at a World Cup since 1995, when twenty riders reached the finish in Germany, Colombia. Even Pogacar, who crossed the finish line with more than a minute and a half on the number two, called it “one of the toughest matches I have ever driven.”
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Almost 5,500 altimeters
That it would be tough in Kigali was more than clear beforehand. With 270 kilometers and nearly 5,500 meters, the riders rode over the second-heavy World Cup course in history-only at the edition in Sallanches, France, had to be bridged more altimeters. Nevertheless, the circumstances in the days before the competition turned out to be even more spicier due to other circumstances.
My heart rate is constantly bizarre high, and I don’t get it down
Due to the height – Kigali is 1,500 meters above sea level – riders did not make their usual wattages, they noticed in the week before the competition. “My heartbeat is constantly bizarre high, and I will not get it down,” said the Dutch leader Thymen Arensman two days before the competition. And then there was the smog, because of the many taxi m fighters and trucks in Kigali. Arensman: “As if you are driving with a mouth cap.” After a training ride, Sam Oomen said, you got off the bike “as if you just smoked two cigarettes”.
On Saturday at the women’s race it turned out that there was another thing that influences performance. After the race, countless riders told them that they were bothered. In the Women’s Peloton, “at least eighty percent of riders” had something among the members, Demi Volling said – also “to the race” – on Saturday after the competition.
This problem also played with the men, it turned out on Sunday. Almost every rider said after having been bothered by his stomach afterwards – even Remco Evenepoel, who nevertheless finished second. Only winner Tadej Pogacar felt completely fine. But his Slovenian team, he revealed, had taken his own chef – that of his cycling team Uae.
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Rain
The game was lathe on Sunday from the first local round by Kigali (15 km). The weather was warm and oppressive, the pace was high. In the first hours it immediately rained assignments. Not only from riders from Panama, Mali or Turkey, but also drivers from large European cycling countries left the race at bushes. Biniam Girmay from Eritrea, the first large star of African cycling, would not make it to the finish either.
After nine local rounds an extra loop followed, about Mont Kigali and the famous Kasseenklim Mur de Kigali. On the last, Loeisteve Spiece by Mont Kigali – a hundred kilometers from the finish – accelerated Pogacar, and thus broke the game completely open. Evenepoel had to release. Cramp through a loose -fitting saddle, he would tell later. Only the young Mexican Isaac del Toro could follow Pogacar.
Back on the local circuit (another seven rounds) tried to keep Pogacar del Toro with him, the two are teammates at UAE in daily life. But 66 kilometers before the end, Del Toro also dropped through it (stomach problems, Pogacar told afterwards) and the world champion only drove further. Pogacars lead would no longer fall under the minute in the remaining 66 kilometers. For example, the final of the World Cup transformed into a battle for the second place, which was won by Evenepoel – reassed after his material pech.
Cramp
The Dutch leader Arensman was one of the survivors in Koers in the final round. But on the second-to-last climb, he says afterwards in the pressing, he shot ‘completely in the cramp’. End of match. “You won’t go anywhere with cramps in your legs.” It is clear to Arensman how much he has abandoned: deep grooves of effort draw his face. Yes, he says without hesitation, also for him this was “the toughest course ever.” He would have found it “completely fine” “if the game had been two rounds shorter.”
Mollema, who still looked pretty fresh after 270 kilometers, also thought it was “quite extreme,” he says. “Look how long we have done about it, six and a half hours or something.” If he is told that he is only one of the thirty -finished riders, the surprise of his face can be read. “Is that really all?”
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