1927: the first professional cycling world championships take place in Germany and they're won by an Italian, Alfredo Binda.
1931: Copenhagen hosts the cycling world championships for the first time. This year the road race actually consists in a 172 kms long individual time trial. The winner is Learco Guerra, also known as 'Human Locomotive'.
1958: female riders can take part in the Worlds for the first time. The first woman to be named 'World Champion' is a Luxembourgian, Elsy Jacobs.
1994: for the first time, the world championships host two races for each category of riders: the time trial and the road race.
The world championships have been one of the most important races of the cycling calendar for a very long time now. Every year they take place in a different city and every year they manage to thrill everyone: the few selected riders who get to represent their country in such an important competition, the national coaches who cross their fingers while hoping that one of their riders will cross the finish-line in first, the journalists who (once in a while) can afford themselves to support their compatriots openly, the supporters who follow the race (from their houses or from behind the barriers) in a very patriotic way. This is the magic of the Worlds, this is the reason why this race is so important.
In these days the whole world of cycling is focused on Copenhagen, the Danish city that is hosting the Worlds for the 5th time in their history. Copenhagen was actually the cradle of this competition, since the first edition of the race saw the light in the Danish city almost 100 years ago. Since then, many things have changed: the riders aren't amateur anymore, the bikes are much better than the ones of he 1920s and the race has become much more important.
The 2011 Copenhagen Worlds took off with the time trials. Those who had the honour of 'breaking the ice' were the young girls of the Junior category. Amongst these girls there was the European champion Rossella Ratto, from which Italy expected a good performance. The parcours was 13.9 kms long and it was completely flat and the fastest girl to complete it was Jessica Allen, who ended her successful ride towards the gold medal 19 minutes after starting the time trial. Allen is Australian (she comes from Perth) and she was the last rider in the time trial's start list. The third-to-last girl down the start ramp was Elinor Barker, British, who lost the gold medal (or, better, won the silver medal) for just two seconds. Third, with three seconds of delay from Allen, was a German, Mieke Kroeger. A very exciting race for the viewers, especially if we consider that the first and the third rider were eventually divided by just 3 seconds. However, it must be said that Jessica, Elinor and Mieke were clearly the strongest ones on Monday: The Dutch Thalita De Jong, for example, ended her race 15" down on Allen, whereas Ratto (5th) needed 31" more tha the Australian to finish her race.
On Monday afternoon, the actors on the Worlds stage were the U23 male riders. The race was exciting and Michael Hepburn's time was the best one for a lot of time. The Australian is a very talented rider, who was second in this year GP Liberazione and who is also an excellent pistard. Unfortunately, the 20 year-old wasn't careful enough in one of the last curves of the parcours, so that he crashed and he even had to change his bike. That caused him a time loss of about 35" - 40" which, however, didn't prevent him from getting a wonderful bronze medal as a reward for his efforts.
As the last riders started their races, Hepburn started to fear that his time wasn't good enough to get a victory. In particular, Rasmus Christian Quaade, a very strong Dane, looked determined to win the race in front of his people. Eventually, he managed to set the best time for just 10" and he lived the last moments of the time trial on the 'winner's chair'. Unfortunately for him, Rasmus was forced to leave that seat soon: Luke Durbridge in fact rode the time trial of his life and he won the race easily (he needed 36" less than Quaade to end his time trial). 'Durbo the Turbo' was born in Perth in 1991 and is one of the youngest riders that ever won the U23 time trial race at the Worlds. The first day of race at Copenhagen, therefore, ended with the Aussies getting two gold medals and a bronze one and with the Danes getting a good silver medal. Australia is great at finding new talents and the Australian way of creating little champions is great: first the young guns must race on track, then they can take up a career on the road. There is no doubt: the Australian way of time trialing really rocks. Actually, over the last two days everyone had to admit that the German way of time trialing isn't that bad either - but let's go in order.
The second day of the Worlds took off with the Junior time trial for male riders. The winner was the surprising Dane Mads Wurtz Schmidt, who set the fastest time at all intermediate sprints. Mads, 17, was a debutant in the Worlds and he rode 4" faster than James Oram from New Zealand. An Australian, David Edwards, was third, thus showing everyone that the Aussies have a wonderful training ground.
In the afternoon, the task of thrilling the viewers was up to the female riders. Some of the favourites were Villumsen (who had been third in the race for two times), Arndt, Teutenberg, Hughes, Neben, Vos (of course...), Johansson and Cantele. Pooley, last year winner, was considered a favourite too, although the parcours actally didn't suit the small British athlete (she is 157 cms tall).
Clara Hughes, a 39 year-old rider from Canada, set a very good time halfway through the race, just like her compatriots Tara Whitten and Rhae Christie Shaw. Unfortunately, the Canadians weren't lucky at all: Whitten in fact ended the race in 4th (she missed the bronze medal for just 2"), Hughes was 5th and Shaw was 7th.
Noemi Cantele, one of the favourites, never found a good rhytm and even crashed on the slippery asphalt. Vos and Teutenberg never threatened Hughes' time and, in the end, the ones who could do better than the Canadian were three of the last riders to start: the former Dane (now she races for New Zealand) Linda Villumsen, the Engineer Emma Pooley and the great Judith Arndt. In the end, the German rider won the gold medal in front of Villumsen and Pooley, thus becoming one of the few riders to win both the Worlds road race and the Worlds time trial. Moreover, this athlete also won a world title in the individual pursuit back in 1997. A champion, isn't she?
As the second day of Worlds ended with Arndt's great performance, the Elite men were ready to face the flat parcours in the center of the Danish town. Italy expected a top 10 result by Malori, but Adriano couldn't find the rythm, whereas Pinotti got a good result, especially if we consider that he resumed racing in August after breaking his pelvis in May. After all, it is known that Italians give much more attention to creating climbers and Classic riders rather than time trialists... On the other hand, some countries (Australia, Germany, Denmark) focus also on training some good time trialists.
On the eve of the race, people talked a lot of the battle between Cancellara and Toni Martin: the Swiss hasn't won many races this year, whereas the German policeman has won many time trials. Some even thought that the Swiss rider wouldn't have taken part in the race in order to avoid being beaten by the German, but that eventually didn't happen: Fabian is a champion, not a coward.
One of the fastest riders halfway through the race was Dyachenko, who looked slightly uncomfortable on 'the winner's chair'. However, as the last group of riders started the race, things soon changed. Larsson never managed to find a good rythm, whereas Grabsch was using a very hard gear, thus managing to get a very fast time. The Danish support for Jakob Fuglsang gave everyone googlebumps, just like the look on Toni Martin's nervous face at the start. Cancellara, however, looked even more nervous than the German: he knew he wasn't at his best, but he wanted to defend his title of world champion. However, it soon looked obvious that Martin was much faster than the Swiss. The HTC rider didn't take a lot of risks in the last part of the time trial and always used a very hard gear. Cancellara, on the other hand, took some risks, made a few mistakes on some curves and, most important, he never looked in a great shape. Even his position looked bad, since he kept on moving his spine.
In spite of that (and in spite of the fact that he almost went down after a curve), Cancellara managed to take the bronze medal anyway. Second was a relaxed Bradley Wiggins, whereas first was an unbeatable Toni Martin.
After three days of race, he verdict is clear: Germans and Australians have some very good time trialists: Germany is the present, Australia (and Denmark) are the future. New Zealand has a good training ground too, whereas Italians and Spaniard lack of young guns and of trainers. But still, that's a problem of mentality and I don't think this will change anytime soon.
Tomorrow the Worlds will allow us a day of break, then we'll have three days full of emotions thanks to the road races. Forza azzurri!!!!
PS: Miss Fede is very busy with her Russian course in these days, so she can't blog very often. However, she promises she'll answer the comments on her last post as soon as she can: stay tuned.
Moreover, miss Fede thanks http://pahope.tumblr.com/ for publishing on her great tumblr one of miss Fede's Schleck-related sentences, which was apparently reblogged by many other tumblritas (full list to follow, sorry but it's late and I need to sleeeeep!!): thank you girls, being quotated by you was a honour (but seriously, I don't think my sentences are actually that good)!
Anyway. It's late and I need to sleeep. This Russian course is killing me. I have 5 hours of it everyday and other 2/3 hours of study when I get home - it's not easy to study all those things, especially because they are written
Hasta la vista, dear readers, and spokoĭnoĭ nochi to everyone!! (no, it's not an insult, it means: 'have a quiet night!')
PS2: After seeing Cancellara's result, I think that a bald Danish man was probably laughing out loud while looking like a mad scientist - and no, I'm not talking about Nygaard :P
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