World Road Race Championships

Coming towards the end of the season, and the various guys and girls are in Copenhagen to compete for the various road race and TT titles.

It appears that the area is unusually flat for a Worlds, which brings a strong possibility that the road races could finish in bunch sprints, and this year Team GB have the benefit of a full squad in the men's road race (courtesy primarily of Wiggins ranking points from Paris-Nice and the Dauphine), so can do a job in keeping things together for Cav.

So far, not bad from Team GB - Emma Pooley may have lost her women's TT title, but on a course as flat as this one she was always going to struggle, and getting a bronze medal was a good performance.

Wiggins got silver in the men's TT, but was well beaten by Tony Martin, who has now cemented his position as the number 1 time trialist of this year (both beat not-so-Fab Fabian Cancellara, who could only take the bronze after a disappointing season by his previous high standards).

And now we have a gold in the Junior Women's road race.

To be honest, the only person who had a chance of beating that version of Tony Martin would have been Cancellara, and he would have needed to be at his best IMO. So silver for Wiggins was a tremendous resuly, his second half of the race was excellent (he was fifth at halfway), in fact marginally quicker than his first half (by a second). Millar did OK, but never really in the hunt. Martin was phenomenal, quickest in every single sector I think.

In the women's Pooley did well to medal on a course which was ill-suited to her. Interesting that the woman's winner Arndt rode without an earpiece, as did Wiggins in fact (said that sometimes people gave him false info which he found unhelpful). So yeah, GB doing really well so far IMO.

Men's race will be big, but unfortunately I can't see Cav winning, because no one will want him there at the end. Still he has a very strong team around him (GB's strongest ever) so you never know. Maybe Germany will help out with the chasing (for Greipel) and they've got some excellent chasers.

what a win for cav! but also fantastic team performance they put in so much hard graft with froome and cummings early on and a lung busting effort from wiggo!
I was a bit worried right at the end when G had become detached from the manx missile but another brilliant sprint finish this british team right now is as bordman said 'the strongest British team ever'.
Overall a very encouraging GB performance this past week and this can be a big springboard to hopefully gold in london!

Yes Cav. What a race. A tear came to my eye when the national anthem was playing. Great stuff, if Cav doesn't win SPOTY this year it will be a disgrace

Brilliant stuff from GB! They controlled the whole race (without radios). Wiggins's turn at the front was phenomenal, made it so so hard for people to break clear. Stannard also wa fantastic the way he found space for Cav towards the end there. As for Cav, what more is there to say? Left without much of a train after the hard work the Brits had had to put in throughout the day (which no one else was willing to do) he once again chose the right time to make his move, timed it well, and was too good for the rest of the field. Best sprinter in the world today by some distance, best of all time? Can't be too far off... SPOTY? If there's any justice. Also did you see his interview at the end? Basically spent the whole interview saying how proud he was of the team. He'll be at sky next year, you can be sure of that.

Well done Cavendish! Well done team GB! Top of the medal table, awesome!

I know there are some posters on here who don't like Cav or the way he races (the latter of these at least is a perfectly valid criticism because of the power of the HTC team), but once again it is abundantly clear that he is very very good at what he does.

Abundant major tour stage wins
Points jerseys
Already won one of the Classics
Now the world champion and so will be riding in the rainbow jersey for the next year.

I would like to see him try to become a more versatile rider and be competetive in more of the early season Classics (he'll never do anything in the Ardennes, but Paris Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders could be targets in the medium term), but so far he is doing an excellent job of maximising his results based on his physical capabilities.

I think there's a chance Cavendish may develop into a Paris-Roubaix type contender as his career progresses. Boonen di it pretty well, and let's not forget that Cavendish for all his achievements is still remarkably young (26). Eddy Merckx's TdF stage wins is another target I guess.

Regarding the HTC thing, yes he has a huge team working for him, but ultimately they all work for him (willingly I believe) because of two things: he delivers at the end of the day, and he's always grateful to his teammates. Will be interesting to see how Sky juggle their interests between him and Wiggins next year (assuming as seems likely he goes there).

Can't argue with GB's tactics on sunday: they had the best sprinter in there so it fell to them to control the race, and they did it perfectly. Cav then did so wel to deliver under what must have been simply enormous pressure (no second chances here, unlike in the GTs).

For the Cavendish fans, remember this? ruly amazing sprinter, we're lucky to have him.

What a rider! It's an unfortunate truism that "a climber can win the Tour but not a sprinter" so, yes, let's hope he remains injury-free and in great teams so that he can beat the stage wins record. No reason why he can't.

And some classic 1-day races along the way.

Staying with the Worlds, I felt very sorry for Nicole Cooke who had some classic bad luck.

just found an interesting article on the times website, from before the race, where the GB team members explain why they're all willing to work for Cavendish. Can't give a link to the article itself obviously, but here are some quotes.


“Financially there is nothing in it for any of us if Cav wins,” Wiggins said. “He’ll look after us with a drink and whatever, but I think that is a sign of the level this team has come to now: we have all come together to give 100 per cent to help him to win.

“Dave Millar wasn’t going to ride this year, either, and said a few months ago that he would ride for Cav. So we have all individually spoken to him and said, ‘Yeah, we believe in you, we’ll ride for you’, and we have come together with this one cause.”

“Mark is a good leader in that he’ll appreciate it,” Millar said. “He doesn’t forget what his team have done for him. That’s why he gets a team working so well for him. He’s a very generous leader. He shows it in appreciation, even in gifts. He’ll give guys watches. He never forgets. The biggest thing is he gives you kudos in interviews. He makes you feel special. He’s generous in spirit and even materialistically.”

Millar pretty much sums up what I was saying earlier: he gets good teams riding for him because they want to.

Fantastic win for Cavendish and a fantastic team effort. It was a pretty well astonishing performance from the British team over the World Championship week - finishing as the top nation with two golds and various silvers and bronzes. Lizzie Armitstead got held up in behind a crash in the women's race and could only finish seventh (cooke finished fourth) - team GB were riding to give her a chance of a win in the womens race. Anyway nice win by Bronzini (Ita) to retain her title - and bad luck for Vos (five time runner-up).

With regard to next years Tour-de-France it seems possible that Britain /Team sky might have two challengers for the grand classification - Froome and Wiggins. With Cavendish almost certain to join, it's not clear how they will juggle the team effort. The yellow jersey will be their primary focus - which represents the pinnacle of the sport.

for next year it's probably not too much of a problem. Cavendish says he wants to win the Olympics, and as such will most likely not complete (or maybe even ride at all) in the TdF, as it finishes only a week before the Olympics I think. Wiggins is in more of a "been there, done that" position for the Olympics and has said he will prioritise the TdF as a result. I suspect that the following year we'll see a decent train for Cav, but certainly not the amount of support he gets at HTC...

Geraint Thomas who would be the lead out man for Cavendish has said he will skip the TdF next year to focus on the Olympics. I think winning the Olympics road race (28th July 2012) will be a priority for Cavendish, although adding to his stage wins in the Tour de France (30th June to 22nd July) must also be a priority.

bumping this up slightly to mention that Cavendish has been nominated for SPOTY. Surely he should win it this year? On achievements he stands alone IMO.