September 26/08 2:27 am - Road World Championships

Posted by Editoress on 09/26/08
 

Road World Championships - U23 Men Road Race Varese, ITA

Photos

The Italian team saw their hopes of a second world title stymied by a gutsy late attack from Colombian Fabio Andres Duarte Arevalo, who didn't want to leave the finish to a sprint. Duarte Arevalo broke away in the last kilometre from a lead group of 11 and held to finish a couple of bike lengths in front of the chase group. Simone Ponzi salvaged Italian pride with silver, just in front of Germany's John Degenkolb. Canada had one rider finish - Eric Boily in 80th place, 5:23 down on the winner.

"Until the last lap I was okay, and then there was a hard attack on the climb and I was dropped by maybe 25 seconds. I thought that I could maybe make it back to the peloton after the top of the climb, but they were going so hard to chase the leaders that there was no chance. I was hoping to do better, to finish with the group, so it is a little disappointing. But I was in a break with two laps to go, and it was a good experience so that I will be more prepared next year."

The 10 lap, 173 kilometre race saw a break go away on the first lap, and by lap three there were 11 riders up the road, two minutes up on the bunch. In the lead group were: Ricardo Van Der Velde (Ned), Johann Rabie (RSA), Thomas De Gendt (Bel), Duarte Arevalo, Alexander Porsev (Rus), Jonathan Monsalve (Ven), Stefano Borchi (Ita), Dominik Nerz (Ger), Dejan Bajt (Slo), Rafael Andriato (Bra) and Rafael Valls Ferri (Esp). The major team missing from the front group was the U.S. Boily, David Veilleux, David Vukets and Ryan Anderson were all in the peloton, but Joel Dion-Poitras had been dropped, and Anderson was also gone a lap later. Vukets lasted until lap seven, and Veilleux was gone a lap later.

By the halfway point, the ranks of the lead group had swelled, and the peloton was shrinking rapidly to attrition. However, the pace was going up at the front, and the final selection of six was made late in the seventh lap: Duarte Arevalo, Ponzi, Degenkolb, Ben Swift (Great Britain), Daniel Oss (Italy) and Cyril Gautier (France). The group worked well together for a lap, but then the attacks began, with Gautier and Duarte Arevalo both trying to split things up on the climb.

The stop-start efforts worked to the advantage of the chasers, and three riders managed to get across to the leaders in the last lap - Rui Costa (Portugal), Egor Silin (Russia) and Dennis van Winden (Netherlands). Other chasers were also starting to close, and the main field was only 40 seconds back with less than five kilometres remaining in the race. After a flurry of small attacks by Degenkolb and Gautier, Duarte Arevalo took advantage of a lull in the action to make his race winning move. The Colombian came down the final straight with a clear gap of 25 metres on the belated chasers, and had enough time at the finish to do a shoulder check before throwing his hands in the air.

Race Note:

Canada was one of ten teams visited by the UCI 'blood doctors' this morning before the race for haematocrit tests. All riders were declared fit for racing.