Chrono des Nations

Parcours - the women's route is in pink (click to enlarge)

21.10.12 Official site
France, Time Trial, 20.870km
UCI 1.1

It seems incredible that the Tour of Qatar was eight months ago - yet the Chrono des Nations was the final UCI professional women's race of the 2012 road racing season. (Worry not - we now have several months of fantastic cyclo cross to keep us going through the winter months!)

Team USA's Amber Neben won last year (for the two years prior to that it was Jeannie Longo, who also won the first women's edition of the race back in 1987 as well as in 1992, 1995 and 2000 - she was eighth this year) and was easy favourite to win again this year: she did not disappoint her legions of fans with a stunning ride in slippery conditions, taking 28'34.38" to get around the 20.87km parcours and beating closest rival Alison Tetrick of Exergy Twenty12 by 1'08". Tetrick will be happy enough, however - her second place marks a return to form following injury earlier in the year. Edwige Pitel, riding for ASPSA Grenoble, may be 45 years old but put the finishing touch to a superb season in which she won a bronze medal at the French Individual Time Trial Championships and took first place at the Memorial Davide Fardelli when she crossed the line with a time 18" behind Tetrick, placing her in third place.

Amber Neben

Current Swiss ITT Champion Patricia Schwager, riding for a national team rather than her usual GSD-Gestion, was fourth with 30'03.71". Marijn de Vries was Déesses' top "rider to watch" tip - the Dutch woman has had excellent form over the last few months and a turn of speed to match. With the sad news that her AA Drink-Leontien.nl will not continue into 2013, there was every reason to expect her to end the season on a high point and she did so with a superb fifth place, getting around the course in 30'`15.83".

An interesting fact for you: the Elite Men's race was 48.5km, the women's race was 20.870km. Some might say this justifies the men getting bigger prizes - after all, they did more work. Yet Neben won only €379, compared to the €5,785 that Tony Martin won in the Elite Men's race. In other words, the women did 43% of the work done by the men, yet the winner received a prize equal to only 6.55% of that received by the winning man. The total prize fund on offer to the women was €2,478, 16.55% of the €14,977 fund for the men. No matter which way you look at it, there's no justifying that.

The Parcours
The race began at the Place de la Gare on the Rue du Onze Novembre 1918 and sent the riders immediately into a long and mostly straight (except for the slight bend to the left near the end) 0.68km to the first corner; since this section sloped gently downhill spectators were treated to some spectacularly fast starts. The first corner was a tight right-hander into the Rue Nationale (D755) at a bar called La Tonnelle - while the corner was wide, the Nationale is one of the main truck routes in and out of Les Herbiers and with several small industrial units nearby there was a potential risk of fuel spillages on the road surface and most riders grabbed a big handful of brake going into it. Right from the first corner the parcours began to climb, then descended again after 2.25km; then climbed once more to the second right-hand corner 6.63km from the first at La Croix Barat, the highest point on the route reaching 170m above sea level after approximately 65m of climbing in 2km - an average gradient of around 3.25%, but more like 7% in places. This corner, more sweeping than the last, has had a traffic island slightly off-set from the centre added to prevent cars taking it at too high a speed, thus making it a relatively technical section.

Marijn de Vries

Once around the corner, the riders were on the D79 leading south for 2.6km to the third right corner. The road, like the previous two, is fairly straight with only wide, sweeping bends, but trees alongside are dropping their leaves at this time of year - another potential hazard when wet and slippery. The terrain descends for most of the distance, gently at first and then more steeply in the final third of the section before a short rise at the end. The corner is sharp, but with plenty of room for a bike allowing riders to negotiate it at speed. The following section, La Bonneliere, carries the riders through 4.29km into St-Paul-en-Pareds, a flat route with only a couple of 10m climbs before a descent over the final kilometre; other than more dropped leaves it looks to be free of conceivable hazards.

After following the Rue de l'Eglise and the D23 - more straight, non-technical roads - through St-Paul-en-Pareds, the race reaches a fourth right turn and begins heading north back towards Les Herbiers. The corner is very wide, not sharp and shouldn't cause any rider any problems; it leads into an initially bendy, then straight 2.82km section through forest to a roundabout on the D23, climbing approximately 30m over the first half. Immediately after the roundabout the riders come to Ardelay, a suburb of Les Herbiers, then reach a second roundabout after 1.58km. The flamme rouge is 400m ahead, then riders negotiate a third roundabout before coming to the final turn 610m after the flamme rouge. Another right-hander, this one turns almost 180 degrees around a mini-roundabout and is likely to be very slippery if wet; riders positing good times will be likely to take great care not to throw away their chances at this point when there are only 400m along the straight, slightly uphill Avenue de la Gare to the finish line at the Place de la Gare.

Results

1 Amber NEBEN Team USA 28'34"
2 Alison TETRICK STARNES Exergy Team Twenty 12 +1'08 "
3 Edwige PITEL ASPSA Grenoble +1'26"
4 Patricia SCHWAGER Team Switzerland +1'29"
5 Marijn DE VRIES AA Drink-Leontien.nl +1'41"
6 Cecilie Gotaas JOHNSEN Hitec Products +1'57"
7 Mélodie LESUEUR BigMat-Auber 93 +2'03"
8 Jeannie LONGO-CIPRELLI ASPSA Grenoble +2'15"
9 Ann-Sofie DUYCK Lotto-Belisol +2'16"
10 Lina-Kristin SCHINK GSD-Gestion +2'32"
11 Jutta STIENEN Team Switzerland +2'36"
12 Larissa DRYSDALE CS Groningue +2'58"
13 Martina RUZICKOVA SC Michela Fanini-Rox +3'05"
14 Mélanie BRAVARD Vélophile Naintré +3'23"
15 Aurore VERHOEVEN UV Angérienne +3:45
16 Coralie DEMAY Comité du Morbihan +4'03"
17 Johanna SMITH TF Languedoc-Roussillon +4'27"
18 Sandra LEVENEZ UC Carhaix +4'30"
19 Morgane CHARLES CSM Epinay-sur-Seine +5'00"
20 Julie AUGIZEAU La Roche-sur-Yon VC +5'03"
21 Danièle PAROT TF Région Centre +5'33"
22 Muriel RIDEAU La Roche-sur-Yon VC +5'47"
23 Marie TONDEREAU TF Région Centre +6'15"
24 Carole VALLEE VC Lionnais +6'30"
25 Marion SICOT TF Région Centre +6'44"

GP Heuts Heerlen CX results

Daphny Van Den Brand
(image credit: Thomas Ducroquet CC BY-SA 3.0)

"Here in Heerlen, I could tell the others were tiring so I took a bit of a risk. When I came to the last corner, I knew the victory was mine." (Daphny Van Den Brand)

It's been an excellent weekend for Dutch cyclo crosser Daphny Van Den Brand - yesterday, she won the Superprestige Middelkerke race and today she repeated that success on the frozen parcours at Heerlen after giving Sanne Van Paassen and Nikki Harris the slip as the three of them raced to the end of the final lap.

A last sprint along the tarmac gave her a ten second advantage as she crossed the finish line, with Van Paassen crossing eight seconds ahead of British rider Harris. Helen Wyman won this race last year and was a favourite today - however, despite a customarily excellent launch away from the start she's still having some problems in the freezing conditions during the latter part of this season after coming down with a chest infection that has cut a swathe through women's 'cross, making her fifth place finish 1'16" behind Van Den Brand  perfectly respectable.

Babaco's Christine Vardoros suffered with her asthma in the cold weather and therefore did well to take 17th place all things considered. "Asthma strikes again in Heerlen today," she told fans via her Facebook page. "With very cold dry air i was wheezing within a minute of the start and pedaled backwards for the whole race, somehow managing to ride slower and slower. It took everything i had just to cross the finish line in what felt like - and probably was - slow motion. Sooo bummed." She later said that she'd have stopped had it not have been for the knowledge that so many people were cheering for her, and anyone who suffers asthma will be more than a little impressed that she kept going and finished the race.

It was notable that, despite the question placed to her by a UCI interviewer following the World Championships at Koksijde two weeks ago, the absence of Marianne Vos did not make the race any more competitive; all riders rode as hard today as they have done when competing against the Dutch superstar with no apparent increase in effort.

Van Den Brand now has three races to go before she ends her 'cross career at the end of this season. "It's time to let the new generation take over," she says.

Dutch website Wheeler Watchers have excellent photos to illustrate the icy conditions.

Elite Women Results

  1.  Daphny Van Den Brand 00:37:50
  2.  Sanne Van Paassen   00:10
  3.  Nikki Harris 00:18
  4.  Sophie De Boer 00:36
  5.  Helen Wyman 01:16
  6.  Arenda Grimberg 01:26
  7.  Sabrina Stultiens ST
  8.  Reza Hormes Ravenstijn 01:54
  9.  Nikoline Hansen 02:02
  10.  Joyce Vanderbeken 02:10
  11.  Amy Dombroski ST
  12.  Iris Ockeloen 03:02
  13.  Ellen Van Loy 03:10
  14.  Evy Kuijpers ST
  15.  Nancy Bober 03:35
  16.  Yara Kastelijn 04:05
  17.  Christine Vardaros 04:21
  18.  Margriet Kloppenburg 04:40
  19.  Madara Furmane 05:37
  20.  Lotte Eikelenboom ST
  21.  Marianne Alleleijn ST

Full results

Superprestige Middelkerke results

Elite Women

1. Daphny Van Den Brand WV Schijndel 00:39:25
2. Nikki Harris 00:08
3. Pavla Havlikova 00:13
4. Arenda Grimberg 01:08 
5. Helen Wyman 01:28 
6. Nancy Bober 01:53 
7. Joyce Vanderbeken 02:06 
8. Nikoline Hansen 02:21 
9. Amy Dombroski Crank Brothers 02:33 
10. Nicolle De Bie 03:35 
11. Christine Vardaros Baboco - Revor Cycling Team 03:40 
12. Margriet Kloppenburg 00:01 
13. Caitlyn La Haye 00:02 
14. Sandie Verriest ST

CX Worlds Results - Vos triumphant

It's been said that Marianne Vos versus the rest of the world is not as uneven a match as it at first appears (except to those who have followed her career and know that the world doesn't stand a chance). The 24-year-old Dutch cycling phenomenon proved this to be the case once again today with a record fifth World Cyclo Cross Championship on the challenging Koksijde sand dunes, breaking away early and leaving the rest of the pack to battle it out for the silver and bronze medals. Incredibly, she was not at her best - sand is not her ideal habitat and she revealed after the race that she hadn't been feeling 100%; but Vos running at 75% remains devastatingly effective. She rode with Sanne Van Paassen for a short while, then gained a lead and kept building on it by powering up the dunes with a slightly fudged dismount and late bike change having little impact on the ultimate outcome. Having now won five times, she becomes the joint second most successful rider in the history of the cyclo cross World Championships alongside André Dufraisse and Renato Longo - Erik de Vlaeminck is first with seven (but Marianne's only 24 - she has time to top that).

Daphny Van Den Brand is noticeably a better rider on this parcours, looking far more at home on sand than Vos though she can't match her for power; her technical skill allowed her to take a very well-deserved second place 37 seconds down. Sanne Cant also rode well, despite falling on a corner,  and crossed the line just a second after Van Den Brand.

Britain's Helen Wyman says she's been working on improving her starts and the fruits of her labours were very much evident today - she was fastest away from the start line and led into the first corner before being caught by the mighty Dutch and Belgians at the first dune. An unpleasant-looking crash later in the race sent her face-first over the handlebars, but she was back onboard and making up for lost time within seconds; unscathed but for a mouthful of sand. Unfortunately, she couldn't quite take the top ten finish that British fans were anticipating - luckily, Nikki Harris was there to take responsibility and finished a very impressive 6th, while Wyman took 13th..

The sight of Caroline Mani and Sophie de Boer, both initially feared to have sustained broken bones after a crash in the early part of last week's final World Cup round at Hoogerheide, will have been a welcome one for all fans of the sport regardless of their nationality. However, this race was not without upset - in a post-race interview, a UCI official caused controversy and disbelief by asking Vos if she felt that she was "killing the sport" by winning too many races: a question that many fans have declared insensitive out of a very reasonable belief that she should be allowed to celebrate her achievement.

The question was also stupid. Did Eddy Merckx kill cycling? Did Sean Kelly kill Paris-Nice? Did Lance kill the Tour? Of course not - each of them, through their excellence, brought new fans. Each, through their dominance, forced other riders to improve their own performances in order to match them - and men's cycling benefited. Now Vos is doing the same for her sport; and with the likes of Pat McQuaid claiming after the World Road Race Championship that women's cycling is insufficiently developed for female riders to deserve equal pay to their male counterparts, Vos' reign can only be a good thing - just as Beryl Burton was good for women's time trial racing in Britain. Helen Wyman summed things up perfectly last week when she said, "Despite missing two rounds, [she] has shown that she’s pretty much the standard setter for us all and we all need to raise our games."

Bring it on, Marianne. By winning so much, you're breathing new life into women' cycling. The sport needs you - and long may your reign continue.

Elite Women

  1 Marianne Vos Rabobank Ladies Team 00:41:04
  2 Daphny Van Den Brand WV Schijndel 00:37
  3 Sanne Cant Boxx VeldritAcademie 00:38
  4 Sanne Van Paassen Brainwash 00:49
  5 Katherine Compton Rabobank-Giant Offroad Team 00:53
  6 Nikki Harris 01:03 (best British rider)
  7 Sophie De Boer WV Schijndel 01:05
  8 Katerina Nash 01:11
  9 Jasmin Achermann 01:12
  10 Lucie Chainel-Lefevre 01:54
  11 Pavla Havlikova 02:43
  12 Sabrina Stultiens Brainwash ST
  13 Helen Wyman 02:45
  14 Christine Majerus Team GSD Gestion 02:46
  15 Linda Van Rijen Skil - 1t4i 02:52
  16 Arenda Grimberg 03:01
  17 Gesa Bruchmann 03:30
  18 Caroline Mani 03:36

Best-placed British rider Nikki Harris
(image credit: Wielerpro.nl CC BY 2.0)

  19. Nicole Duke 03:40
  20 Meredith Miller 03:54
  21 Olga Wasiuk 04:52
  22 Martina Mikulaskova 05:04
  23 Amy Dombroski Cranckbrothers 05:21
  24 Joyce Vanderbeken 05:34
  25 Kajsa Snihs 05:39
  26 Kaitlin Antonneau Exergy Twenty12 05:41
  27 Rocio Gamonal 05:43
  28 Sabrina Maurer 05:56
  29 Nikoline Hansen 06:19
  30 Asa Maria Erlandsson 06:34
  31 Alice Maria Arzuffi 06:55
  32 Ayako Toyooka 00:01
  33 Sakiko Miyauchi ST
  34 Lise-Marie Henzelin ST -
  35 Genevieve Whitson Asptt Dijon - Bourgogne 00:02 - -
  36 Madara Furmane ST