World Cup #3 – Koksijde

This will be a short one as I’ve got hours of driving ahead of me to get to tomorrow’s Superprestige race at Gieten. Also, I got quite a few complaints that the picture viewer is not working, so until that’s sorted, I’ll insert the photos below.

It’s been a long day, great racing in the sand, it’s painful, even for me, to watch these bikes being destroyed in the sand. Finally, it rained a little during the U23 race but it didn’t really change the face of the race but after the last two months’ draught, it was definitely a start.

We’ll remember this race from the final sprint between Sven Nys and Kevin Pauwels. Nys probably knew that he couldn’t beat Pauwels in a flat-out sprint so he launched his attack before the final corner but Pauwels stuck on his rear wheel and as soon as the reached the finishing strait, the battle began. It’s up to the race jury to decide whether Nys left his line and blocked Pauwels’ or whether it was just a case of fierce racing but Pauwels looked pretty upset after the race and he skipped the press conference, too.

See you tomorrow, from Gieten, the Netherlands.

2011-world-cup-koksijde-15-beloften-u23-start — MInutes after the start of the U23s

2011-world-cup-koksijde-16-gert-jan-bosman — Eventual winner, Gert Jan Bosman pushes himself forward on the long, sandy section of the course.

2011-world-cup-koksijde-18-engels — Being the closest race to the UK, you could hear English being spoken quite often all around the course.

Daphny Van Den Brand darted off at the start and that was the last time the others saw her. Marianne Vos tried to close the gap a couple of times but Van Den Brand held on to her lead confidently.