Oostmalle & the GVA Final CX

Telenet Fidea vs. Sven Nys

Looking back! Notice all the Telenet Fidea jerseys.

I'm going to work on my Flemish for next year. I know that Pauwels was having a couple of serious bike problems out there, but all I could do was look at his frustrated gesticulations with no clarifying commentary to fill in the gaps. He'd stopped to fix the bike in one of the early laps, and then, in the last lap his arm went up after he vainly tried to fend off an attack by Nys, and Pauwel's pit stop shortly thereafter was an indication of bike malfunction. Otherwise it would have been foolish to change bikes at such a crucial moment in the race.

But what a race, huh? Telenet Fidea against Nys, basically. And the indomitable Nys came out on top. What a cap to a great season for one of the legends of the sport. He never ceases to amaze.

When Pauwels struggled, for whatever reason, to stay at the front of the bike race in the early laps, the wily Nys accelerated in an attempt to create enough of a gap to make it race over with seven to go. But the chips were all in Pauwels favor in the form of his teammates either working to rein Nys in, or to draft Pauwels back into the race.

It was primarily Stybar trying to get in front of Nys to slow him down, or Wellens (with a touch of Meeusen and Peeters) carving clean lines and blocking the wind in order to allow Pauwels to recover enough to get back to the front. And it worked! When Pauwels got back on Nys's wheel with still half of the race to go, it looked like Nys had burnt himself out and Pauwels was just starting to get charged up, but lap after lap the two stayed together.

Celebration!

When Albert took off no one cared because he had no affect on the overall standings. Albert's impact was more on Wellens with a fourth or fifth place GVA overall, not the podium. By the final lap, it was obvious that the Telenet Fidea guys were trying to figure out a way to temper Nys's fire and get their guy to the finish line first. Stybar in particular kept looking back, trying to find Pauwels so he could perhaps block Nys at a strategic moment, or lead Pauwels out in the inevitable sprint.

A somber Pauwels after the race getting support from Stybar.

But the sprint didn't happen. Something went haywire on Pauwels' bike and his detour into the pits ended his chances. Sven had time to savor his victory long before he got to the line. That takes nothing away from Pauwels, who rode a great race and was unfortunately beset by circumstances beyond his control.

Nys
Who else, with all that talent matched against him, could still pull off such a commanding victory? Nys may not have the all out firepower he had in his earlier years, but that's now replaced with cagy wisdom and it's making for some of the most exciting racing you'll ever want to see.

Overall GVA Results 2010-2011

There are a couple of interesting side notes to mention as well. Jonathan Page stormed off the start and rode hard with the leaders for the first few laps, dropping a short ways back for the rest of the race to finish in 11th place overall. And Bart Aernouts had one of the best races of his season with a second place finish. You always felt he had it in him, but for whatever reason he'd been far off the podium for most of the season.

Okay, it's on to the Spring Classics and another great year of bike racing in all its forms. It will be exciting to watch Lars Boom in the road races. I think he has a great chance for some high placings and wins in many races to come. It will be interesting as well to watch Zdenek Stybar branch off into other venues. A man of such great talents can't be held down. And next year in cyclocross the jerseys will be mixed around a bit with top racers on different teams. I'm looking forward to watching all of that unfold.

I only hope that we can get better television coverage of both international and domestic cyclocross racing here in the US. Or, at the very least, better--and more--live stream feeds.

CX is good. Keep up the support.

Screenshots courtesy Sporza