Hi Skaters,
Yesterday was the World Cup race in Zurich. Again, as it is every year, it was a hot and fast race. Everyone knows that Zurich often ends in a massive pack sprint, so many of the attempts of skaters trying to get the race to finish on a breakaway didn't come to much. The men's pack is often one of the biggest of the season because everyone show up for this race, even some skaters from outside the WIC.
The race got under way at 4 p.m., a little later than usual because of the Masters World Championships that were held earlier in the afternoon. Often, with the heat in Zurich, parts of the road melt, and you can lose a skate in them, and this leads to crashes galore. So much energy is wasted in staying upright.
Throughout the race many skaters tried to break away, but towards the end all the teams formed up their sprint trains to try and win the massive sprint finish. With about 3km to go, our team's sprinter, Raphael, crashed. That sent our team in all directions so it made things very difficult for us to get any sort of sprint together.
I turned around to see if Raphael was coming back to the pack because, if he was, I was going to try and help him. He had told me he was feeling good during the race; he had some good results in sprint finishes of late; and he crashed last weekend and caught back up, so I believed he could still do OK. Unfortunately he was too hurt to carry on. In the last "U" turn there was a pretty big crash. I didn't go down but I was held up behind it. That pretty much put an end to my race. Roger Schneider was able to finish a solid fifth which saved the day for the team.
Unfortunately the race (mainly the finish) was marred by fighting in the pack. Something needs to be done in the future to clean things up. It quite often means that not always the fastest skater wins; insteadk, the skaters who get the clearest run at the finish often win.
This coming weekend is another "fast" race: the World Cup in Sursee. Two, 21km laps of a lake. I hope things are cleaner this weekend.
Thanks for reading.
8 comments:
Hi, Scott. Could you explain what this "fighting" in the pack is like? I don't quite understand what you mean.
Scott,
I also would like to hear more about the "fighting" in the peloton. If you could enlighten us without having to "put someone on the spot" it would be good for us non WIC skaters.
Also congratulations on a job well done on your behalf over in the WIC racing!
Well I do think that the fastest skater won the race in Zurich. And the grabbin and pullin has always been a problem, and the only way to win a WIC is to ride dirty like the rest or when you're stronger then the rest (proven last sunday)
Hi,
Alot goes on inside the pack that people can't see from the outside. Towards the end of most WIC race there is a fair amount of pushing and shoving as teams try to establish their position and prepare their sprint. Everyone wants to be as close to the front, but not at the front until the perfect moment. The thing about the race the race in Zurich is that the group is bigger than alot of the WIC races. For some reason alot of different skaters choose to race in Zurich. Also the race is quite short at around 35km, and with no major challenges on the lap, most of the group that starts the race is also there at the finish.
Another factor as to why there is so much fighting in Zurich is at around 1800m to go there is "U" turn. This was the scene of a pretty big crash this year.
Thanks for your questions
Scott
Scott,
Thanks for this insight into these int'l WIC races. It makes for interesting reading.....I hope the WIC will return to Duluth - USA in the future.
where are you scott?
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