World Championships 2012 - spoilers allowed
 

Surprised no one started a thread yet.
Our American wonder-boy Phinney missed gold by 5" in the TT and his compatriot Tejay missed the podium by just as much.

So basically so far, we here in the USA have 1 gold and 3 silvers
1) gold to Lululemon TTT (our USA girls Neben and Stevens on that team)
2) silver BMC TTT
3) silver E. Stevens TT
4) silver T. Phinney TT

I'm taking Emma Pooley for the women's RR and Phillipe Gilbert for the men's.

U-23's and juniors are way to hard to predict.

i haven't been able to locate any kind detailed profile on the last km or so. just looking at the general profile, yah...gilbert & valverde leapt to mind. haven't found a detailed start list either. grrr...

ooga,

They go over the Cuaberg and then it's less than 2k to the line I believe. Most likely Gilbert and Boonen will be in a group heading to that last climb, then Gilbert will get away with one or two others over the top. If they are caught in that last little run-in, then Boonen is there for the sprint. Simple, right?

The TT wasn't broadcast live here so I recorded it in the middle of the night, just finished watching it. Amazing performances by Martin and Phinney, the two being approximately 1 min 40 sec ahead of third. Martin passed Contador on the road. Quite an exciting finish.

Is Bradley Wiggins still sick? He did not compete in the TT.

ymca, found a little bit of info. yes, it's 1.7 km to the finish after the ascent of the cauberg and the finish is supposedly flattish. i'd feel better about either gilbert or valverde's chances if the finish were even a slight uphill. still wanna see the start list to judge which breakaway specialists may wanna take a flyer...

Here is the start list for the mens road race Sunday:
http://www.limburg2012.nl/upload/doc...ME_revised.pdf

Should be exciting but I unfortunately get it time-delayed in Canada.

Congratulations to Marinna Voss on winning the womens' race. Oh, nobody cares, still fixated on Lance Armstrong. Your loss.

Tough to care when it isn't being televised...

How many world champions BMC has now???? 5?

Darn Spaniards had the best team you can get and they screw up at the bottom of the climb, i thought they were going to train as the belgians at the front to get 1 or 2 riders to win at the end... they screwed up...!!!

Yeah, I couldnt find it televised on any of our channels.
Does anyone know if Boonen helped Gilbert? It seems from the Youtube clips that this wasn't the case...

Nibali and team-mate led into the Cauberg with four Belgians behind. Nibali and Belgian + Gilbert opened a gap, then Gilbert just accelerated and left everyone on the ascent.

http://www.steephill.tv/road-cycling...championships/

Yes, on the Cauberg Gilbert was following Boonan who was following Nibali, then Gilbert shot past them both. Amazing surge.

OMG, 87 DNF including Wiggins, Froome, Cavendish, Teejay, Horner, and Brajkovic. I only watched the final 10 km and need to watch earlier segments to see what happened.

Ok thanks guys.

Probably nothing... They filled their role of working for their team leader, or weren't in contention due to the parcours, missing breaks, or not having great legs on the day, and dropped out instead of wasting their energy by finishing the ridiculously long race for no practical reason. It makes perfect sense in one-day races.

I don't blame Valverde for leaving Freire behind. Freire should have been glued to Gilbert's wheel like ticks on a hound.

I don't want to sound too nationalist here ... but MAN did those belgians just crush the competition or what?

maybe it's just me but i miss bettini. i bet he woulda given gilbert a run for his money...

Excellent finale. Belgians deserve everything they got.
Gilbert was the very heavy favorite and lived up to the hype with raw power, that few can ever match.
Two years in a row of the odds-on fave winning World's is no small feat.

National holiday today in the country of bier, fiets and frites?

Especially considering the course, which was 100km from the start in Maastricht to the ten lap 16.5km circuit so if you weren't feeling strong you'd have a perfect opportunity every 16.5km to say "to hell with this game of soldiers".

and mayonnaise. :)

:thumb:
and I'm not Belgian.

Ballan, Evans, Thor and now Philippe.

Assuming that team is injury free next year, they will be that monster team which everyone expected this year. TeeJay and Taylor are still waiting on the wings too..and for some off reason I sense a HUGE off season acquisition (I just dont wanna say a name right now).