By Gavin McLoughlin
Ireland’s Dan Martin, Ronan McLaughlin and Nicolas Roche turned in eminently respectable performances in the elite men’s race at the World Road Race Championships in Valkenburg today, Sunday.
Roche and Martin arrived at the final ascent of the legendary Cauberg in a lead group replete with superstars, but were ultimately unable to match the power of their rivals.
They would cross the finish line together in 33rd and 34th places respectively, 17 seconds behind new rainbow jersey bearer Philippe Gilbert of Belgium.
McLaughlin was unfortunate to find himself caught behind a gargantuan crash some 50 kilometres from the finish, arriving with a large group 8 minutes and 15 seconds behind Gilbert to finish in 105th place.
Team orders had tasked the Donegal rider with the protection of Dan Martin, preventing him from getting up the road in a breakaway.
Advertisement
Before commencing ten laps of a 16.7 km circuit in the environs of the town of Valkenburg, the morning began with a 100km tour of the province of Limburg. Frequent attacking kept the pace high in the first hour, stringing the bunch out along this region’s notoriously narrow roads.
A duo of Gatis Smukulis (Latvia) and Vitaliy Buts (Ukraine) escaped as the race passed through the village of Adsteeg, and the peloton would soon permit a contingent consisting of Pablo Lastras (Spain), Jerome Coppel (France) Tim Duggan, Alex Howes (both USA) Dario Cataldo (Italy), Vladimir Isaichev (Russia), Winner Anacona (Colombia), Luka Mezgec (Slovenia) and Fabricio Ferrari (Uruguay) to join and establish the break of the day.
Curiously enough, it would be the British squad that established control of the peloton thereafter. Without a top favourite for victory, this seemed like an assumption of unnecessary burden. But whatever the motivation, it was heartening to see defending champion Mark Cavendish churning out the hard kilometres on the front of the bunch. The Manx Missile, thoroughly unsuited for victory on this parcours, held the gap around 6 minutes as the race fizzed through the lush Dutch countryside.
A fierce injection of pace from the orange-clad Netherlands squad briefly splintered the field as the peloton neared the Valkenburg circuit, with Dan Martin and Ronan McLaughlin caught out as they tried to conserve energy at the rear. Luckily for the Irish, Team GB would soon take over the pace-making once more and the frantically-chasing hordes were able to re-establish the connection. As some up front began to grow weary, the gap to the leaders inexorably started to dwindle.
Pre-race analysis suggested that a total of eleven ascents of the Cauberg would provide the catalyst for much of the action, and so it proved.
On the 3rd scaling of the steep kilometre-long climb, Spanish classics specialist Juan Antonio Flecha launched a powerful attack, taking a dangerous combination of Steve Cummings (Great Britain), Gianni Meersman (Belgium) Maxime Bouet (France), Michael Schär (Switzerland), Michael Matthews (Australia), Fumiyuki Beppu (Japan), Jakob Fuglsang (Denmark), and Rinaldo Nocentini (Italy) along for company as the Belgians massed ranks behind.
With his day of work complete, Mark Cavendish soaked up the acclaim of the spectators and abandoned the race to officially end his reign in the rainbow bands.
On the 5th ascent of the Cauberg, Alberto Contador (Spain) glided effortlessly up the road to shatter the bunch to bits and place dread in the pits of his rivals’ stomachs. Though he would quickly sit up, this was a stark illustration of the Vuelta winner’s intentions.
Related News
And with the second group on the road vigilantly kept within reasonable reach at all times, it was no surprise when Contador and a group of elite climbers including Robert Gesink (Netherlands), Jonathan Tiernan-Locke (Great Britain), Michael Albasini (Switzerland) and Alejandro Valverde (Spain) bridged across on the next ascent, with all three Irish unable to follow.
The remnants of the original breakaway were summarily gobbled up, and a new select group of 29 riders went clear with just under 80 kilometres remaining.
It seemed momentarily as if the life had been sucked out of the chasing pack as a gap of over a minute was quickly established. Slowly but surely, however, the advantage began to dwindle as the protected riders up front failed to contribute and the perseverance of the German, Belgian and Australian squads behind began to pay off.
When the leaders reached the Cauberg for the eighth time, Flecha and Pablo Lastras stamped hard on the pedals in an attempt to refine their group further. Reassuringly, the green jerseys of Dan Martin and Nicolas Roche became prominent near the front of the bunch, but McLaughlin’s chances would evaporate in seconds as carbon met asphalt to leave a sizeable throng behind.
As the peloton dragged itself tantalisingly within reach, Contador danced away yet again on the ninth ascent of the Cauberg, but the Spaniard’s best efforts could not fend off the chasers.
Roche and Martin settled themselves in the new lead group as Italy took charge with two laps remaining, leg muscles cramping and exhaustion pervading.
The 23 year-old American Andrew Talansky launched an attack on the short Bemelberg climb to go clear with British national champion Ian Stannard, but the duo could only establish a miniscule advantage as they reached the foot of the Cauberg for the penultimate time.
Surprisingly enough, it was Stannard who had the energy to put one last valiant dig in, but the redoubtable Italian Vincenzo Nibali forced the pace to sweep up the Briton and halve the lead group in size, with Martin and Roche still present and correct at the business end of affairs.
Martin took a big turn on the front as the last lap got underway, but it was that man Contador who would ensconce himself in the driving seat in an effort to set things up for teammates Alejandro Valverde and Joaquin Rodriguez. The tension became unbearable as the blockbuster group hurtled towards the finish line at over 60 kilometres an hour.
Luca Paolini (Italy) buried himself in service of Nibali as the road soared upwards, but it was Philippe Gilbert who was by far the strongest as the leaders climbed the Cauberg for the final time.
The Walloon, totally anonymous for almost the entire race, gritted his teeth and drove for the line as Valverde, Norway’s Edvald Boasson Hagen and Russia’s Alexandr Kolobnev looked at each other behind.
Sure enough, Gilbert would hold on cross the line with his arms in the air and the torment of a hitherto disappointing 2012 campaign forgotten. A year in the rainbow jersey awaits the Liège man.
In the weeks ahead Dan Martin will surely attempt to improve on last year’s second-place at the Tour of Lombardy. Roche joins Bjarne Riis’s Saxo Bank- Tinkoff Bank outfit next year and has now finished racing for the season.
After an impressive Tour of Britain, Ronan McLaughlin emerges from the past fortnight with great credit, and will surely look ahead to next year with a GC win in the An Post Rás possible.
Topics
