I watched the women’s race this morning on YouTube without commentary, I think it was that channel,

Yeah, but you can watch at any point and rewind to beginning.

Stybar = legend

Michael Boros also doing the home country proud. And Zemanová in the U23.

B- on the course, though. Not one feature particularly interesting.

Agreed on that. Actually I think B- is generous.

From looking at videos of previous races in Tabor, it seems they have used the same, or essentially the same course for years. As best I can gather, this isn't uncommon for the bigger races, the courses themselves become iconic.

One thing that makes race coverage less exciting is the tendency to show only the battle at the very front. The coverage for this year's WC races was better from the perspective that they showed much more of the action back in the pack. Conversely, I don't think it was possible to see all of the course as they kept cutting back/forth to various riders. That said, there seemed to be a few muddy sections running along a hillside that had the riders questioning their line choices from lap to lap, and there were a number of muddy uphill sections immediately after a feature that forced a dismount. On those sections, it was interesting to see how various riders decided when to remount vs when to keep running.

If it had been drier, it would've been interesting to see if anyone would've take a run up that little rise and hopped the barriers. MVdP did it a few times in '15 when he won his first Elite WC on the Tabor course.

MvDP made that look way too easy! I guess Pidcock and WvA knew they did not stand a chance.

I don't think that was it, both of them had announced that they weren't doing the WC before the season even started.

Yeah, seemed underwhelming for a WC.

Definitely. For a better sense of the course go back and find the relay. Parts of the course I never saw in the elite races.

Several people were bunny hopping the barriers, though it looked risky. I think MvdP rode quite conservatively today.

Not sure it will help, but if everyone gives the App a one-star rating they might eventually get the message.

Though I like the Tabor course. The races were a bit anti-climactic, but maybe that's because the favorites were in a different time zone?

Tabor usually isn't muddy, and that didn't make it any more interesting. But it is a storied course for a reason.

Interesting that MvdP has raced Tabor 10-12 times as an elite and has never been defeated there.

For US-based folks, HBO Max has started loading the placeholders for their cycling coverage into the app, starting with the women’s UAE tour on February 8 as well as what looked like a few cyclocross races.

With some 4:30am Central start times, they will hopefully be putting replays up afterwards.

It looked like he was struggling to not appear bored this season. Which is maybe why there were more hints about CX retirement.

Looked like a really hard course that doesn't translate to TV well.

Men's race was about as boring as expected.

Women's about the same.

Joris is a beast, T Nys needs to figure out the consistency part of it all.

MvDP will own souls in the classics at this rate.

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I agree. Since out-dueling Wout at CX World’s last year, he has been locked in. Pogacar has been the only rider to get the better of him in a key event.

Pretty much what we already knew, but the end of Operacion Ilex have been disappointing. The Spanish judicial system doesn't seem to care about this and I wonder how much it has to do with footballers and their clubs involved in these incidents through the years.

https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/operation-ilex-report-suggests-athletes-are-still-gaming-the-system-a-la-armstrong/

Always follow the money in cases like this.

There is presently a judicial investigation into Barça paying relatively large sums to a former official, the payment eliciting at least appearance of impropriety if not being outright impropriety. It would not surprise me an iota if sporting fraud also occurred.

It's also well-known that Catalan favorite-son, Saint Josep Guardiola, failed a drug test (albeit for steroids). Very well likely that more systemic stuff and/or O2-vector doping occurred as well.

I'm headed to Girona soon. Can I get you anything?

You mean, coffee, right? Like what Superman Lopez drinks?

Not surprising at all. The last two (that I recall) major scandals also settled without shedding any light onto anything: jiffy bag/Freeman/Wiggo and Froome's salbutamol mess. I also suspect the JV recent positive will also disappear in the horizon as "he was acting alone" My theory has always been that we would have never ever been talking about any of this if it wasn't for the Festina scandal that forced the authorities to look into the sport.

On a separate note, it seems as if the sprinters racing has started at the Tour of Colombia. Astana seems to be fully committed at getting Cav his TDF win. Unfortunately, it does not look overly positive if he can't win against Gaviria.

Sure.

The same Girona brew that had our man LA holding 500w for 30 minutes and who remains smug about it as if......nvm.

17 days until the 'Loop.

Apparently a whole raft of doping news. Toelhoek's suspension is a bummer. He was looking pretty good at Jumbo, and pretty much became anonymous in his two years at Trek. Failed his test after his last race with Trek, not sure if he'd started training with this CT team for 2024 (Sabgal / Anicolor). That's quite a descent from beating Bernal in a stage at the Tour de Suisse with Jumbo to doping out of Sabgal / Anicolor.

Bonnamour's sucks for AG2R. Like that team isn't struggling enough already.

I always find it odd when a guy that is 5'10" and about 130 lb, tests positive for steroids. But then I remember that as described by various former cyclists, this is a common practice to recover faster for heavy training and racing volume. At the end of the day, another stark reminder to all fans that there is still stuff going on out there. I do want to believe things are better than 20 years ago.

Joining the rest of the cycling teams who all do their altitude training in Spain, eh?