UCI website said it would be on BBC iplayer, but I couldnt find it, watched highlights on youtube instead, some good racing.
U23 Women on now (I'm watching on Discovery+), what a great race. Some proper battles going on, lots of back and forth. Close then it's not, then it is....
It's a fantastic course as well.
Is jealous, can't see it on HBO Max. Going to have to wait for the mens
Men's race starting in a couple of minutes.
Thomas Mein and Cameron Mason for GB.
WvA is on the 4th row, some talk of tactics within the Belgian team for the higher gridded Belgian riders to potentially lead him through / move out of the way to get him to the front.
Why was WvA starting on the fourth row???
He didn't have enough ranking points to be gridded higher due to his short racing schedule. Compounded by missing a couple over Christmas with illness.
He's frequently come through the field very fast starting from deep, but you always need a bit of luck doing that. Didn't get the run of things yesterday and got badly caught up first lap. Shame as he looked great once he'd moved up, but I doubt he could have contested that course with vdP.
Seemed like a very hard technical lap, with riders not sure on pressures plus significant puncture risk - e.g. Toon Aerts was in great form for the race but had three flats.
Watching the women's elite I overheard commentators talking about punctures and it being quite a 'stony' track.
He didn’t have enough ranking points to be gridded higher due to his short racing schedule. Compounded by missing a couple over Christmas with illness
Something really wrong with Wout's/Belgium's thinking there. If he'd been top 16 world cup ranking he'd have been gridded at row 2. He would easily have manahed that if he'd ridden last Sunday, but he chose not to. It was either a genuinely last-minute decision to race (even in the knowledge that he'd be well down the grid) or else somebody got the gridding rules wrong and it went from being clever mind-games to prettty much being doomed from the off even if he did smah it up the start straight
