Women's cycling race forced to pause after lead rider catches men's race

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Women's cycling race forced to pause after lead rider catches men's race

• Nicole Hanselmann made up gap on male racers
• Men’s race had set off 10 minutes before women

Alex Hess
Sun 3 Mar 2019 15.36 GMT Last modified on Sun 3 Mar 2019 15.39 GMT

A cycling race in Belgium was thrown into disarray when the leader of the women’s race, which set off 10 minutes after the men’s, almost caught up with her male counterparts and found herself in danger of being impeded by their support vehicles.

The Swiss cyclist Nicole Hanselmann of the Bigla Pro team surged into an early lead of almost two minutes in the annual Omloop Het Nieuwsblad race around the Flemish Ardennes, but her solo breakaway was cut short by a hasty request that she stop at the side of the road as the event organisers neutralised the women’s race in order to restore the gap between the two groups.

After being allowed to resume, Hanselmann was given a headstart on the peloton but was quickly reeled in and eventually finished in 74th place.

“It was a bit sad for me because I was in a good mood and when the bunch sees you stopping, they just get a new motivation to catch you,” she told Cyclingnews. “We could just see the ambulances of the men’s race. I think we stopped for five or seven minutes and then it just kills your chances.”

-snip-

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/mar/03/belgian-cycling-nicole-hanselmann

[qazplm135]

1. not surprising that the top female

would challenge some of the men.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. I suppose if she'd just kept on riding

and finished ahead of most of the men, they'd have simply disqualified her.

Clearly the men need much more than a 10 minute head start if they're going to stay ahead of all the women. Make it two hours next time.

[SallyHemmings]

3. Heaven forbid she beat one of the boys

[jberryhill]

6. Ummm....

The men's Omloop Het Niewsblad finished in four hours, fifty three minutes:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/omloop-het-nieuwsblad-elite-men-2019/results/

1 Zdenek Stybar (Cze) Deceuninck-QuickStep 4:53:1

The women's race finished in three hours, twenty minutes:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/omloop-het-nieuwsblad-elite-women-2019/results/

1 Chantal Blaak (Ned) Boels Dolmans Cyclingteam 3:20:58

The women don't run the same route.

Since the women's race is a lot shorter than the men's race then, yes, the women have a faster pace in general over the initial section which is shared between the two courses. But they don't run the men's and women's races over the same course for the entire length of either race.

[jberryhill]

5. Except the women don't follow the same course

The way these things are laid out, they share some sections of road, but not the entire course.

The women's course is shorter than the men's course. This was on the initial section, before they split up due to different numbers of circuits on subsections of the overall course.

Aside from which, I don't care who is racing - a solo break from the line in a 200km race is not going to win the race. Period.

What happened in the Junior's race was a lot worse though.

Link to tweet

[SallyHemmings]

7. Timing a little off?

[jberryhill]

8. They say that the driver is used to a manual

..and that he thought he was going to shift, so his foot went for the clutch that wasn’t there.

There have been some incidents with drivers forgetting to turn off automatic braking systems, which then stop the car when riders come up alongside.

[Bayard]

4. NOT FAIR!

Probably not as many men cyclists cared as much as the officials.