Tadej Pogačar bei der Lombardeirundfahrt (Bergamo, 12/10/2024)
In men’s road cycling, the six-day Tour of Guangxi will take place from October 15th, which will again be a one-day race for women on Sunday, followed by the Tour of Chongming Island until Thursday. These Chinese events with little tradition owe their placement in the highest racing category of the UCI world association primarily to its (moderately successful) strategy of opening up new markets. For the vast majority of well-known riders, the season ended last weekend: the 118th Tour of Lombardy took place on Saturday, which marked the last European stop of the World Tour for men, as did the Simac Ladies Tour, which concluded on Sunday, for women.
Founded in 1998, this week-long event is already time-honored in the young women’s professional world. The fact that the tour, which included Leuven in Belgium in 2023, once again lived up to the original (advertising-free) name Holland Tour, obviously meant a step backwards in terms of the organizers’ goal of covering the entire Benelux region in the future. The fact that the usual September date was canceled may also be an indication that another traditional race may be at risk in cycling, whose economic basis is even more shaky for women than for men.
After the opening time trial in Gennep, which was won by 20-year-old Briton Zoe Bäckstedt (Canyon/SRAM Racing), the largely flat route profile suggested sprint finishes. Consequently, the world’s best sprinters, the Dutch Lorena Wiebes (Team SD Worx – Protime) and the Italian Elisa Balsamo (Lidl – Trek), took first places on stages two and three in the order mentioned. The fact that 25-year-old Wiebes didn’t get a chance the next day was due to her sports management’s spontaneous calculation of not necessarily catching up with a dozen runaways.
The fact that another SD-Worx driver, the 34-year-old Italian Barbara Guarischi, won, justified the tactics of the oppressively dominant team in the short term, which, of course, seemed questionable in the medium term as it was the ten years younger German Franziska Koch (Team DSM-Firmenich/Post NL). overall leadership enabled. Last year’s winner Lotte Kopecky was only eight seconds behind, which could be made up for with a time bonus for a stage win or two second places – unless Koch was rewarded with seconds credit for a top three place. But on the penultimate day, the 28-year-old Belgian was unable to intervene in the sprint, which Wiebes had again won ahead of Balsamo, because she fell heavily shortly before the finish. It seemed all the more unlikely that Kopecky would win the sprint against Balsamo, which was also expected on Sunday’s stage. Nevertheless, the Belgian world champion managed to win the day and overall in a heart-stopping finale when a breakaway woman was caught a good ten meters from the finish by Wiebes, who in turn slowed down in time to allow her colleague, who had been slipstreaming, to overtake her. In eighth place, Koch had to settle for second place overall ahead of Bäckstedt.
The day before, the tour of Lombardy had taken the foreseeable course. Although the breakaway group that had formed at some point was well-known, it was too large to work together effectively. So, as everyone expected, their last remaining members were caught up again at the Colma di Sormano. The big favorite’s attack was expected at the latest on this 13 kilometer long climb – which happened at exactly the same moment: After his team had previously increased the speed, Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) went on the offensive, whereupon the second Victory candidate, Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step), responded with his own acceleration, but was unable to keep up with the 26-year-old Slovenian. He then enjoyed the last 48 of a total of 255 kilometers as another undisputed solo ride.
The fact that Evenepoel was overcome with tears at his destination Como, which he – like the Italian third Giulio Ciccone (Lidl – Trek) – also reached solo, was just as understandable as Pogačar’s celebration of his fourth consecutive triumph at this monument of cycling, which at the same time was his 25th win of the season. The Belgian convincingly declared his second place a “personal victory” after he suffered an accident at the same race in 2020 that could undoubtedly have been fatal.
