28:47 !!
Milner swam within a second of Yee and then lost 10 seconds on the beach > T1. So failed to make the enormous chase pack. Imagine if he and Yee had got off the bike together!
Five got away: Hauser’s somersault was the root cause: Luis was just ahead of him (Hope Hauser’s OK: was a spectacular.) At 23:59 on the race clock, about 200 seconds into Lap 1. Has he grabbed a handful of front brake right in the turn with a ‘sleeping policeman’ bump as the catalyst?
Bergere leading with Wilde Westerman and Reid on his wheel (obscured) and Luis ahead of Hauser and a couple of lengths from Reid’s wheel. All the rest stalled by Hauser across the road and a substantial gap when the cameras return.
1 Like
Pretty sure Milner was at the back of Yee,s group at the beginning of the bike, but got dropped. His weakness is the bike
Once he improves that , he will be right up there.
I did review those early minutes and could not see Milner.
I have been back again and the two Brits at the back of the chase group (at 3 minutes) are Bentley and Willis.
But totally agree, once he gets his bike handling and positioning (with power sustained as necessary) sorted he will be a player.
Looking at the junior and U23 Brits I see no really excellent runners (at this stage). I suspect that the filter of needing to be a very capable swimmer in draft legal early on loses that small cohort of athletes who have th top end potential and eventually can ‘run for dough’.
Another bit of a shocker from Yee by his lofty standards in a grand final, im happy Wilde got some redemption in the end, his talent deserves more glory really.
If I put my British bias aside it was good to see a break stick in the mens race and pay off in the end, which we dont see too many of anymore.
As above, im looking forward to the day Milner gets off the bike with Yee!
Decent last performance by Luis, been brilliant to watch down the years, along with Mola probably the best not to win an Olympic medal, looking foward to seeing what damage he can do a longer distance!
1 Like
Yes, but it was a bit weird and “suspect” that the break not only stuck but managed to get the gap to balloon to almost 2 minutes. The moto help alone doesn’t explain it, nor does the biking horsepower in the lead group. What the heck were the men in the chase group thinking?
The break got the initial gap due to a crash in 5th or 6th wheel (Hauser?)
You could maybe criticise Yee for being too far back at that moment but a “bit of a shocker” is rather harsh
1 Like
Suggest you had 5 motivated guys in that front five, for their different reasons, with none taking it easy. What a great opportunity for Luis to bow out on a high!
Chasing pack: we saw some trying, but they needed half a dozen to put sustained shared effort in - nope.
- Vilaca tried a bit, maybe some others
- Yee did a bit: but he could see that he just needed to run without wasted legs to win the Championships overall: #6 would’ve been good enough even if (unlikely) Bergere had been able to outrun Wilde.
- Pearson hasn’t got the horsepower
- Stapley is all ‘channelling his inner Brownlee’ and minimal action
I would have liked to see the Brits all get on the front and TT drill it, but I guess that BritTri shouted in: 'no point boys, only 5 in the front pack, you ain’t gonna catch ‘em, Alex will run it in ftw (champ win)’. Probably also taking into account that they (Bentley, Willis, Yee, Stapley, Leleu (and NB Dickinson who could have dug it out was sick and DNS)) are just not individually strong enough.
1 Like
7th in DailyTri fantasy after the weekend, any other ST regulars doing well?
1 Like
It’s true, I watched the junior and under 23 ,GB has some good swimmers, but no good runners.
But the both Potter and Milner can’t to tri late.
Maybe they should recruit at the running track , 
Here is what I saw regarding the break in the mens race. Bergere and Wilde had worked their way to the front through that hectic transition with so many guys to put the pressure on the pace. You have to remember that they do not have the benefit of knowing where folks are in those first few miles, but they do know that many guys are under pressure and the only way to open gaps is for someone to drill the front. Hauser got it started and things were strung out, but it was Leo and Hayden who not only are the best two bikers in the pack, but also were the ones with the most to gain by forming a possible gap to Yee…
It just so happened that at the exact moment that Leo put in a big attack, Hauser crashed on a turn and spooked those behind. Watching the crash it did not really block others from getting around, but the combination of holding up for a split second to see what was going on and Leo drilling the front, well that was where the break got its first few seconds.
After that it was pure horsepower and teamwork. You literally had 5 of the best bikers in the group in that break, and all willing to work their asses off once they saw they were clear of Yee. You could even see that when guys got tired they let them sit on for a few rounds until they were good to go again. It was Hayden’s dream scenario so he was willing to put it all out there too.
Of course the chase was on, but there is something to a group being too big and disjointed. Solo pulls and attacks gets the pace going, but nothing like a 5 man TTT that was going on in front. And to the dude that thinks they could only have gotten off with funny business, you have no idea how these things work it seems and you always seem to throw shade when something big happens…
I just love that the ride is becoming a real bike race, as it was intended when drafting was allowed all those years ago. Also happy that Yee got the overall win, he certainly deserved it and coming back in this race and getting a podium showed just how tough he really is. For awhile there with a couple miles to go, I thought that silver might have been in the cards with the way Leo was looking. But that is another tough deserving dude too, the 3 best got the top 3 spots in both the race and series…
2 Likes
Be intrested to see how much time Yee made up on that front pack on the run, in comparison to when Mola was doing it, have a look at that when I’ve got time.
Thought Max Stapley could have done a little more.
For sure, if Sam Dickenson had been there, he would have buried himself.
Max Stapleu, so far, doesn’t have the run to make LA 2028, his best shot is in a Sam Dickenson role.
Yee was trying, but didn’t seem to manage to get enough help. From what I could make out as anyway
I did wonder how much domestique action we’d see, Wilde and Bergere got the perfect scenario really, actually surprised Le Corre and Connix never went all in and tried slowing the chase pack.
The Brit lads were pretty useless really (as domestiques) which is odd in comparison with the Brit girls who are all very useful on the bike.
1 Like
Yeah, you are right
Not all of them are good enough bikers.
Thought Max Stapley was ,but he didn’t seem to do a lot
Monty,
I enjoy your commentary here…thank you.
As I was watching the race, I was thinking that in a real bike race, the group would have never let two out of the top three favorites to go up the road. It would have been shut down pretty quickly. It just seemed like the group lacked motivation and the overall quality of the race suffered because there was no real chance for anyone outside of the top five guys to win.
This was a perfect opportunity to use up a domestique if you had one.
I
According to his account, the reason he switched from racing for Australia to GB was that Tri Aus were only allowing him to go to races under the condition that he would be a domestique.
In addition, he seems a bit childish and high maintenance (based on what he says on Triathlon Mockery), so if (and that’s a big if) Brit Tri would even want him to help Yee, it’s no surprise he won’t fall in line.
Well in a real bike race guys would not be huffing and puffing after drilling a swim and putting out way too many watts in the first few miles. And of course the biggest difference is that there is no race radios, so everyone is racing blind for awhile until groups form or come together…
But imagine in a real bike race that 3 of the worlds best TT’ers get together with two of the best climbers in a break on a flat course. Now imagine it is a race like the olympics or worlds where there are not really any teams or team efforts beyond ones of happenstance. That is what an ITU bike race is like, a bike race but not like a stand alone one with all the teams and accessories.
There were team efforts being put in to close or limit the damage, but unfortunately it was not coordinated because of the nature of this last final race. Many were in it for themselves and trying to get their last big points for rankings. And of course the fact that the 5 guys off the front were probably 5 of the best 8 in the entire race, well made it especially hard…
And someone mentioned why the couple French guys in the 2nd group didnt do anything to slow it down, well they did in fact do that. They were two of the other top cyclists in the race and chose to sit on the back most the time and not contribute, which in of itself is slowing down the group. Had there not been two French guys in the break with the one who had a chance at the world title, they would have certainly been on the front drilling the pace with others…It is a passive tactic, but one non the less.
2 Likes
He didn’t have an AUS passport from what I understand and couldn’t qualify for the Olympics so would never have received funding. TBH his run feels like it has gone backwards this year, he doesn’t seem to have made any progress so I don’t blame AUS-Tri utilising their racers to try and maximise that 3rd place (which they didn’t win in the end).
Alistair had a high opinion of himself but justified as Gold medalist. Max at some point will have to deliver to justify his. He was beaten this weekend by development athletes.
From what I have been told he wasn’t too popular for the little time he did spend in Leeds.
On at least 2 occasions I saw a French athlete on the front of the chase pack slowing the group down by coasting round corners and not pulling away straight after.
You don’t have to block to slow the group.
At one stage Stapley was on Yee’s wheel, Yee looked back and saw he was with him and put in a big effort, obviously hoping they would break from the pack and try to work their way up but Stapley didn’t appear to try to go with him. I was surprised as normally Stapley will pull turns and try for breaks if in the front pack, thought strange didn’t try with Yee. I then had a thought that 2 of his Bahrain Buddies were up the front with one trying for the title. Not sure if it still works the same, but it used to be if someone in the 13 wins a bonus the entire team also receives a bonus, to encourage the whole team side of the arrangement.
1 Like