Thor the king:

Eventually, getting up at 6 am on a Sunday morning to watch a cycling race was a good decision. In fact, this year race was very exciting and kept everyone glued to the tv screen until the very last meter of race.
Personally, I spent the whole race asking myself: 'Will the parcours actually suit sprinters? Or will an attacker win?'

I supported the 'attackers' party, especially because Italy's team was mainlyformed by attackers. I usually become very patriotic during the Worlds, so this morning I was hoping for an Italian victory. In fact I didn't believe that my favourites riders (Chris Sorensen and Frank Schleck) had a lot of chances of winning in Geelong, so this morning I was in a very 'Vai Italia!' mood.

When I turned on the tv, the leader of the race was the Ukrainian Kvachuk. He had gone on a breakaway with other 4 heroes earlier in the morning, but unfortunately for him his fate was already decided in the same moment he left the peloton (the other breakawayers du jour were
Diego Alejandro Tamayo Martinez , Jackson Rodriguez, Mohammed Said Elammoury, Oleksandr and Matthew Brammeier). After reaching a maximum advantage of 23 minutes, in fact, the 5 men were caught one after the other.
With 50 kms to go the situation became very interesting, since 2 groups of riders were created. In the first one there were 4 Italians (Pozzato, Nibali, Visconti and Tosatto), some Germans (Greipel included), Gilbert with some teammates, Chris Anker Sorensen (yay!), Serpa Perez, Offredo and other 20 riders. In the second one instead there were big guns like Freire, Kolobnev, Breschel, Cancellara and Thor Hushovd. Farrar, Cavendish and Sagan instead had already got retired.
Tosatto and a Belgian (was it Van Avermaet?) did their best in order to help their teammates, then the fireworks began. Nibali attacked and was followed by Gilbert, Pozzato, Visconti, Evans, Perez and Sorensen. Chris Anker made a great work and showed he's in a very good form. Imo he was simply great today, since he worked a lot for himself and then even had the strength of helping Matti in the very lat meters of the race.
Unfortunately with a few laps to go the breakawayers were caught. In the meanwhile Cancellara had lost contact from Freire's group and the fact that now Freire and Hushovd were in the same group as the Italian leaders frustrated a lot of supporters here in Italy.
In the last kms, Philippe Gilbert showed a lot of courage by launching a solo attack. I think Gilbert was incredible today, he didn't win but he showed to everyone that, if the parcours had been a little harder, he would have been a very hard opponent for everyone. His attack unfortunately didn't have luck and he was caught again with about 3 kms to go.
When Gilbert attacked, Pozzato (the Italian rider who had the task of following Philippe) disappeared. If he had followed him, I'm sure things would have gone differently and we would may have had another World Champion right now.

After Gilbert's attack a group of riders including Frank Schleck, Evans, Kolobnev,Martens and Moerenhout got clear of the peloton. At that point I got a bit angry since I had the impression that everyone was waiting for Evans to close the gap between them and Gilbert. The problem was that Evans had already spent a lot of energy previously, so I thought it was up to the other riders to organise Gilbert's chase. After all, I think that these guys couldn't have a better chance of winning (or, at least, of ending up on the podium) so I think that, if they still had some energy left, they should have used it in that moment. Instead they didn't, and they were caught by the 'sprinters' group', which was pulled by a Slovenian rider, with about 4 kms to go.

A few seconds later also poor Gilbert was caught and Brajkovic and Terpstra attacked. Their action was hopeless, since now everyone who had a fast rider in the main group was trying to make the sprint happen. Chris Sorensen, for example, sacrificed himself for Breschel in spite of his tiredness.

And so, the race eventually ended in a sprint. It wasn't a massive sprint, but still,between the riders who took part in it,there were super fast guys like Freire, Hushovd and Breschel.

Breschel started the sprint first and, for a long moment, I had the feeling he was going to win. Then, Hushovd passed him on the left and won, raising his arms in triumph. Honestly, I have to admit that at that point I let a bad word escape from my mouth.

Matti was 2nd, a surprising Davis was 3rd, while Pozzato was 4th for few centimeters. Without giving supporters the time of realising what had happened, Italian journalists immediately started the dance of the 'Oh, but if they had done so...' 'Oh, but if they hadn't done so...' and so on. Somehow, I have the feeling that this time however they will be softer than they were last year with poor Cunego.

Personally I think that Italy was the strongest team today. They dominated the race and they showed they know how to attack even if they're racing without their radios. Unfortunately for the team, in the decisive moment Pozzato, the team's leader, slept a bit and didn't follow Gilbert. Otherwise, I'm sure things would have gone in a different way.

Imo, Pozzato's problem has always been the following: in the decisive moments, he often takes little naps. He's a good rider, no doubts about it, but he often has defaillances in the decisive moments of the races. And then, he almost always gives the fault of this to something/someone who isn't him.

'I had the cramps in the last lap of the race', he said after crossing the finish-line. Well, personally I think that also Freire and the other riders had cramps (otherwise I think Oscarito would have got a better result), but they didn't blame their placement on them. Well, however, that's how things went and complaining about them now is simply useless,also because I'm sure Pozzato is very angry at how things went, too. Just put yourself in his shoes: 5 months (or whatever else) of sexual abstinence to get a 4th placement in the Worlds.Poor Pippo.

As far as the other teams are concerned, Spain didn't do nothing (as usual). If their 'we don't do anything!' tactic had paid off today, I think I'd have been very angry right now. Fortunately it didn't and Oscarito just got a 6th placement.

Australia was exceptional, since a surprising Davis got a wonderful bronze medal and Cadel Evans was one of the best riders of the competition. Although the parcours didn't suit him,Cadel gave his best to win anyway. And to think that until last year he was known as the 'wheelsucker man'...Amazing.

Denmark rode in a very aggressive style too, especially thanks to Chris Sorensen. You know I really like this rider, but this time I think I won't exaggerate in saying that he was one of the best riders of the race. Also Breschel was very good, but unfortunately he missed the gold medal once again. Btw I think he'll be able to get a good result also at next year's Worlds in Copenhagen too, so he doesn't have to get desperate about this year at all.

Belgium was wonderful too, since Van Avermaet, Leukemans and Gilbert rode in a perfect way during the whole race. I just loved Gilbert's attack and felt very sorry when he was caught with 3 kms to go.

Holland was very good too. Moerenhout and Terpstra showed their class, while Boom was present in one of the most dangerous breakaways of the day.

Slovenia and Russia were very active, but their efforts didn' bring any good result. Kolobnev had his golden chance when he found himself in a breakaway with Evans and Schleck, but didn't grab it because he didn't help Evans in Gilbert's chase. Slovenia pulled the 'Freire's group all day long, but their best rider was eventually 11th. Btw this was a great result for the Slovenian, who were counting on Sagan but then quickly changed their tactics and started to work for Bole and Brajkovic.

France was good too, especially because Feillu got a very good Top 10 placement.The same worths for the incredible Arashiro, who surprised me a lot today.Also Cardoso and Fofonov (Kazakhstan had to deal with the absence of Vinokourov) got a surprising result, while Wegmann showed he's a very strong and complete rider.

Luxembourg didn't have a lot of victory chances today, but Frank Schleck showed his jersey in the last kms of the race. He probably didn't believe a lot in his breakaway and imo that was a mistake. But still, he got a very good placement anyway.

Switzerland instead totally depended on Fabian Cancellara and,when Fabian got dropped, the Swiss had to say 'Auf Wiedersehen!' to their victory dreams.

USA's Van Garderen was very good in entering an important breakaway at the half of the race, but the Americans didn't seem very active in the race anyway.

As far as Cavendish is concerned, I think he didn't believe in his chances of winning this race and that the parcours was probably too tough for him. And then, he definitely needs more than two teammates to win such a long and a hard race.

Talking about teammates, Hushovd's victory was great also because Thor didn't have a lot of teammates around him. I'm happy for his victory because Thor is a very good rider who deserved such an important triumph to enter the Olympus of the great champions of Cycledom. And now that he's got the ranbow jersey, I think he can find even more motivation in himself and therefore I believe we'd better include him in the 'list of favourites for the 2011 Paris-Roubaix' already now, more than 6 months before of that race.

So, this was the first 'Down Under' worlds. The time zone actually made it hard for me to watch the race, but the riders didn't have a lot of problems because of this. Geelong's worlds are over, see you in Copenhagen next year.

(pictures by Mark Gunter)