Race Ramblings: Let's Overanalyze the Hamme and Overijse Results
Hamme and Overijse provided our last look at cyclocross racers before Worlds, so let's read into the results way too much.
After a cyclocross season where it has felt like the racing has been full gas since the beginning of October, the last few weekends have been a bit … weird. Following the Hulst World Cup, the Dutch and British federations went on holiday while only the Belgians, among the ‘cross powerhouse countries, raced their National Championships, and then last weekend, fractured fields took to the sand at Mol in a race that was tough to watch. The Bulletin spent some time at the ponykamp, and as fans, we all kind of wondered what, if anything, would change before this weekend before Worlds.
There is obviously a tendency to read as much as possible into the race before the World Championships, and normally I am of the mindset to take results before Worlds with a grain of salt. However, this year, there were two races on the pre-Worlds weekend to use to inform conjecture, and following Denise Betsema’s explosion of the Women’s field at Hulst, there were definitely questions about how the time away from racing would benefit Ceylin Alvarado and Lucinda Brand.
With the context set, let’s talk about the racing, and against my better judgment, perhaps read into the weekend’s results as we look ahead to the World Championships.
*It is worth noting that the Belgie press had a story on Sunday that the Oostende Worlds might be in jeopardy due to the new, more transmissive strain of the coronavirus being found in the city. I have already declared myself incorrect for my prediction that Worlds would not happen, and one week away, I still really want to be proven wrong.
**On Monday, it appears that things are in a better place in terms of Worlds occurring.
Elite Men
There is probably a lot more going on with the Elite Women’s field, so we will save the intrigue for last and start with the Men.
When we last left Mathieu van der Poel, Wout van Aert, and the large bunch of guys also racing, there was an emerging consensus that the rightful state of the cyclocross world was finally reemerging, with Van der Poel >> Van Aert >> Everyone else. However, since the two last raced each other a Hulst, Van Aert had a kid, won Belgie Nats, and took the win at Mol while Van der Poel peaced out for a Spanish training block with Gianni Vermeersch.
Hamme was … IDK, I guess you could say we’ve seen this story before. The thing I keep coming back to with Van Aert in these races is his lack of sense of urgency in getting on Van der Poel’s wheel early on. It happened at GP Sven Nys, and it happened again on Saturday at Hamme. When Van der Poel finally went to the front after Pit 2 in the 2nd lap, Van Aert was 5th in the strung-out train of riders. Michael Vanthourenhout was on Van der Poel’s wheel, but just as happened when it was Toon Aerts at World Cup Hulst, that was only going to last so long.
Van der Poel soon dropped Vanthourenhout and then rode just hard enough to hold off a hard-charging Van Aert. Van Aert, to his credit, rode as hard as he could and closed the gap on Van der Poel, but the Dutch star has been in this position scores of times before, and he is quite adept at doing just enough to win the race and much more to save his legs. Also, we know Van Aert can ride hard and finish second; what I think even Van der Poel supporters would like to see is Van Aert going hard from the get and trying to challenge Van der Poel earlier in the race, even if it does not work in the end.
Fans waiting to see a hard-charging Van Aert only had to wait *checks notes* one day to see him show that long-awaited sense of urgency. While it certainly helped that the start at Overijse was a long climb kind of reminiscent of Namur (can we talk about how wild it is we are talking about cyclocross climbs being a strong point for a rider who wins Tour sprint stages?), Van Aert still dropped back to about 8th after pulling into Pit 1 at the top of the climb.
On the ensuing descent, he rode with an aggression and sense of urgency he really has not shown in recent years, save perhaps the World Cup in Dendermonde. He barged his way past Tom Pidcock on the descent and then moved all the way up to third by the time riders reached the steep drop onto the cobbles. After the cobbled climb, he was at the front. A minute later, off the front. Van der Poel had no choice but to chase, and 5 minutes into the race, the duo already had a gap on the rest of the field.
The ultimate story of the race’s outcome was THE FLAT, but Van Aert’s early aggression put him in a position to take full advantage of Van der Poel’s early misfortune. Would Van der Poel have flatted if he wasn’t being pressured by Van Aert? Would he have had a 10+ second lead at that point in the race? We don’t know the answers to those questions, but we do know although it was early in the race, the big climb that Van der Poel had to tackle with a rear flat gave Van Aert a nice cushion to try and hold onto.
The next almost 50 minutes of racing were among the more interesting Elite Men’s racing we have seen this season. Of all the courses that Mathieu van der Poel is able to show off his incredible skills, the one in Overijse seems to bring out some of his best performances. He was railing ruts, skidding around corners, and generally pushing his bike and tires to their limits trying to close downtime on Van Aert. At the same time, Van Aert was managing the technical parts and throwing everything he had at the climbs and running sections.
Van der Poel, to his credit, erased a good chunk of his deficit in the third lap, closing a 20+ second Van Aert lead down to 10 seconds after Lap 3. Van Aert countered, however, and his advantage was 18 seconds, then 15 seconds heading into Lap 6.
It seems to be a recurring theme this season that when I really want to write about Wout van Aert, it is because of those moments where he shows confidence, and at times, swagger. Van Aert faced a tough task on Sunday in trying to hold off Mathieu van der Poel for nearly 50 minutes of racing. And he has certainly faced situations before where Van der Poel has flatted or crashed, only to come back and beat him (World Cup Zeven in 2016 immediately comes to mind).
In the sixth lap of Sunday’s race in Overijse, Van der Poel finally cracked the 10-second deficit barrier and by the end of the lap, was on the move to catch Van Aert.
Yes, Van Aert was aided by Van der Poel’s mishap at the end of Lap 6, but Van Aert could very well have sat up and hastened the seemingly inevitable by allowing Van der Poel to catch him, but instead, he went full Wout-at-Bogense-Worlds and threw every watt, ounce of snot, and molecule of mouth foam into the opening climb of Lap 7.
In the end, it was Van der Poel who cracked, making several mistakes in the last two laps and ultimately finishing over a minute down.
Does Van Aert’s effort mean he is going to win Worlds? Probably not. It does, however, show a blueprint for how Van Aert can put Van der Poel on the ropes by starting fast and pushing the pace early, and as happened at Bieles in 2017 and Valkenburg in 2018, that approach earned Van Aert rainbow jerseys 2 and 3, so why not go for it?
Men’s Notes
How about that Laurens Sweeck resurgence? After a second at Mol, Sweeck reached his first major-series podium since Superprestige Merksplas at the end of November.
(I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to do it.)
Ah heck. With the World Championships at the beach in Oostende, could… No.
But wait, I hear a rumbling out over the sea. Daylight has exited. Night is entering. Is that what I think it is?
It sounds a bit like LAURENS SWEECK’S MUSIC.
Although Pidders got pipped by Sweeck at Hamme, I think his run of 3-3-4-3 at GP Sven, Hulst, Hamme, and Overijse is a good sign he is at least my pick for that third spot on the Worlds podium.
Elite Women
When we last left the Elite Women, Ceylin Alvarado had outdueled Lucinda Brand by going right through the trees at GP Sven Nys, and then Denise Betsema had dropped a bomb on the field at World Cup Hulst. Perhaps it was the recency bias at the time, but following World Cup Hulst, I wrote that I felt like both Brand and Alvarado looked tired at Hulst and both could likely use the nice break afforded by the cancellation of Dutch Nationals. While I am unsure if the two Dutch stars were able to go to Spain like Van der Poel, Brand and Alvarado did get two and three weeks away from racing, respectively.
Before we get started, a reader on the Bulletin Slack channel asked if there would be some musings on Alvarado’s BACKness. Since y’all are paying the bills, yes, there will be musings about Alvarado’s BACKness to come.
Full disclosure, I myself picked Prime Time as a Topper in the most recent Topper Chart. At the time of the voting, Alvarado had won at Herentals, finished a close second at Zolder, and won a tight battle at GP Sven Nys in her previous five outings. At her best, when she became PRIME TIME, she was only winning every other race at the beginning of the season, so I think declaring her gone from the top of the Women’s field was not fair.
One of my big takeaways from World Cup Hulst was that Alvarado and Brand needed to get on the same page in terms of not letting Denise Betsema dictate her pace from the get-go if they wanted to neutralize her strongest asset as a racer. Betsema’s wins this season at Beringen, Scheldecross, and Hulst were all obtained via first or second lap gaps that grew to solo victories. When she has had to race in duos or groups, she has proven mistake-prone—see: Namur and GP Sven Nys—which significantly tilts things in Alvarado and Brand’s respective directions.
On Saturday at Hamme, Betsema took the lead right after the holeshot, but Alvarado was on her wheel immediately. When Alvarado took a dive dismounting for a slick run-up, it appeared it might be a Hulst or Scheldecross situation all over again, but Alvarado recovered and was soon back on Betsema’s wheel within not more than a minute or two. In the case of both the Elite Women and Men, it seems weird to continually talk about the importance of the first 10 minutes of races that are 40-60 minutes long, but it seems that with the aggressiveness riders are showing from the holeshot, that continues to be the case.
The rest of the race was all about Prime Time. Pulling a page out of her teammate’s playbook, knowing that only Betsema and Brand are on her level, after Brand faded following her sprint for the Lap 1 time bonus and Betsema ate it in the deep ditch, Alvarado attacked Manon Bakker off her wheel and got a decisive gap she would not relinquish. For one afternoon at least, it looked like the time off had served Alvarado well and she was, indeed, back.
On Sunday, Alvarado and Brand got a solid from seven-time world champion Marianne Vos in keeping Betsema off the front in the first lap. Vos put in a spirited charge up the first climb, and then took over the lead spot on the descent back to the cobbles. Although Betsema briefly moved to the front, Alvarado, Brand, and Vos were able to hold her in check and keep things together at the front.
This is fast-forwarding a bit, but if there is a story from this Elite Women’s race, it is Ceylin Alvarado’s descending. All I have to say, is dang, she was world-class on that descent following Pit 1.
To say a bit more, at the end of last season and through Euros, Ceylin Alvarado’s biggest rival was Annemarie Worst, and while Alvarado had the upper hand in nearly every skillset, Worst’s mountain bike background definitely made her the better technical bike handler. I am willing to speculate Alvarado’s rivalry with Worst forced her to hone her technical skills, and what we saw at Herentals and again on Sunday at Overijse is the fruits of her labor in that realm. However she got there, Alvarado put on a descending clinic.
In the second lap, Alvarado opened up an impressive gap on that descent. In the third lap, she did, until she slipped out right before the drop to the cobbles and gave up the lead to Betsema. That second lap descent though, bookmark that one.
Sunday’s Women’s race was kind of interesting from a pace standpoint. Perhaps because of the longer World Cup race time or because of the challenging course, the front group kind of hit a lull midway through the race. The result was Clara Honsinger was able to do her thing and close to a front group that also included the weekend’s non-Alvarado story, Manon Bakker.
With a group of five at the front in Lap 4, we also got to see the importance of neutralizing Betsema early on. Leading into one of the 180 dismount descents, Betema crashed and fell back to 4th position. Alvarado and Brand went on the attack, and after the run-up to Pit 2, the duo had a gap on the rest of the lead group. It was yet another tight race with a critical mistake from the Dutchwoman from Texel when racing in a tight group.
With the pace upped, and the lead group splintered, the leaders were again down to Brand and Alvarado. Brand had the World Cup overall wrapped up, but Alvarado still had the motivation to get that old feller Mo Mentum in her corner and perhaps, dare we say, send a … message … before the World Championships that she is on-form and ready to defend those rainbow stripes.
In the Art of War, Sun Tzu wrote, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of one-hundred battles.”
Heading into that last lap, Lucinda Brand knew two things. One, she was better on the climb. Two, Alvarado was much better on the descent.
Alvarado, to her credit, stuck Brand’s wheel like glue up the climb to Pit 1. Brand knew Alvarado would be on the move on the descent, and yet, at the top of the climb, she let Alvarado pass her and take the lead down the long descent. As Sun Tzu would say, it was almost as if Brand was oblivious to her rival’s strengths, and thus “for every victory gained, you will suffer a defeat.”
By the time she dropped down onto the cobbles, Alvarado’s lead was up to 7 seconds. The race, for all intents and purposes, was over. Ask Katie Compton, and she will tell you descents are free speed. On Sunday, the descents proved a free World Cup win for Alvarado.
That was the race, but we all want to know what it means for Worlds, obviously. There is no question that with Alvarado winning twice in impressive fashion and Brand having her perfect On Podium Percentage snapped at Hamme, Alvarado appears to have come out of the long rest period with better form. Or did she do her thing too soon? I guess it will be decided out on the course this Saturday, provided the race goes on.
Finally, to address the question of Alvarado’s BACKness, it is kind of a question of where she is coming from. Below is a 5-race moving average of Alvarado wins since the beginning of last season.
Alvarado’s peak was the first race of this season when she carried a four-race winning streak into the season and then won her season-opener at Gieten. What does stand out is that large gulf centered around World Cup Namur in mid-December. Given she has been winning, let’s say, 2-3 of every 5 races, then yes, I think there is a strong argument to be made that Alvarado is BACK. And if she wins Worlds, she will appropriately have 4 wins in her last 5 races and be at the level she was performing at when she won her first Elite World Championship a year ago.
Women’s Notes
If you haven’t been following the discourse surrounding Manon Bakker that started on the Media Pit podcast and then bled into the Bulletin, let me do a quick refresher.
After Ceylin Alvarado’s big win at Gieten, I declared that perhaps it was a “Statement Race” from the defending world champion. A few weeks later after Manon Bakker finished 5th at Superprestige Ruddervoorde, Media Pit co-host Micheal Boedigheimer declared the race a “statement race” from Bakker.
I was a bit surprised that Micheal and some other folks on Twitter were so eager to go ride or die with an athlete who was a jerk to one of the nicest people in cyclocross at Jingle Cross in 2019 in front of a large number of people and got kicked off her team for refusing to use the free wheels she was given, so yeah, I gloated a bit when “Statement Race” Bakker finished 20th at Koppenbergcross a week later and then finished a disappointing 3rd in the U23 Women’s Euros race the following week (to a rider I will always stan, the Ginger Hammer Puck Pieterse).
In the interim, Bakker has raced well throughout the season, and I have not-so-subtly recalled Micheal’s declaration by describing any fifth-place finish by Bakker as a STATEMENT RACE here at the Bulletin.
Well wouldn’t you know it, after I went ahead and did a preview of the U23 Women’s Worlds race last week, Bakker went and had her best two races of the season, far exceeding her STATEMENTS with BREAKTHROUGHS, finishing 3rd at Hamme on Saturday and 3rd at Overijse on Sunday. In the process, if recent results are to be believed, she established herself as the favorite for Sunday’s U23 Women’s race in Oostende.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Couple thoughts from last weekend: 1. Evie Richards seems to look just a bit stronger every week and regularly in subtopper range. Could she be a dark horse for a podium ala Pidders last year? 2. While it’s sad to see KFC so far off the pace understandable at what 42 in this bizarre year. But what is up with Katie Keogh who has gone from top ten range to page 2 of the results sheet? 3. (More than a couple) Maddie Monroe also seems on the rise so hope there is coverage of U23 races (that means you Flo Bikes).
What's the story about M. Bakker being a jerk at Jinglecross 2019?