WHEN RACES PRESS PAUSE
For a moment, if you switched on Dwars door Vlaanderen, you could have believed you were watching a slapstick comedy, not a WorldTour-level bike race. At the halfway point, as the peloton was careering towards the irst major climb of the day, the Kluisberg, the commissaires called the riders to a halt. There had been a crash in the women’s race ahead on the same roads, and an ambulance needed to pass through.
Shortly after restarting, around 10 minutes later, the riders were stopped again. Chaos ensued. Half the peloton took advantage of the rest time, and tried to upgrade their position in the bunch, swarming like ants around spectators, cars, over pavements, to get to the front ready for the restart. Bora- Hansgrohe’s Lukas Postlberger, part of the six-rider break that had been 2:15 ahead up the road, was then forgotten by o icials, and he discovered his breakaway companions had been released up the road without him. He had to take a tow from a media motorbike to join back up to them. Even race director Scott Sunderland got caught in the middle – his car blocked by the eager-to- get- going peloton as it tried to retake its position at the head of the race.
This is the second time this spring a race has been stopped midway – the women’s Omloop Het Nieuwsblad was paused after the commissaires realised the riders, racing at a faster speed than the men, were on course to catch the back of their race.
Running two races concurrently on the same course – particularly one that covers a small area like Flanders – is a logistical headache, but there are advantages of doing so. Similarly, the commissaires made the right call in halting the races considering the scenarios. But if a race is going to be neutralised, the least that can be done is to minimise the impact. When Omloop was restarted, leader Nicole Hanselmann was caught not long after, while in Dwars door Vlaanderen, Michael Valgren was among those who argued the pause had cost them positioning and ended their challenge. Whether the final outcome would have been di ferent no one knows, but if anyone wants to know how not to restart a race, they only need to look at this example.