Defying the odds
The beauty of sport, any sport, is its unpredictability. When the result you expected doesn’t eventuate and the underdog gets up for the win. They’re the ones we talk about the most.
I love these moments in commentary. They’re the ones that keep you on your toes.
Anna van der Breggen winning Flèche Wallone, again and again, for the seventh year in a row is impressive but not the most exciting.
Anna Kiesenhofer pulling off the biggest shock in the history of the Olympic road race to win gold, will be a talking point for generations.
It was the best cover version of Frank Sinatra’s “I did it my way” we’ve ever seen on a bike.
Too busy to be racing the WorldTour, in the middle of her postdoctoral researcher into nonlinear partial differential equations which arise in mathematical physics, she prepared for the Olympics on her own.
And she won on her own.
You just need to look at the Dutch team after the race to see how much of an upset it was.
Of the races that I got to commentate on this year, here are my three favourites. What were yours?
Kasper Asgreen vs Mathieu van der Poel
After six hours of racing the Tour of Flanders came down to a two man sprint, between pre-race favourite, Mathieu van der Poel, and Deceuninck - Quick Step workhorse, Kasper Asgreen.
Unless you’re Danish you were tipping this is surely yet another Van der Poel win.
Robbie McEwen metaphorically put his house on the Dutchman. Most people agreed with Robbie.
In a bunch sprint, small group sprint, almost any sprint, Van der Poel would beat Asgreen 90 per cent of the time.
But a sprint at the end of a 254km race is always different.
At the end of the Tour of Flanders all Kasper could hear was, “so you’re telling me there’s a chance”.
Taco van der Hoorn
Stage 3 of a grand tour is not when the early breakaway survives. It’s in week three, with a peloton struggling with fatigue, that the early move makes its.
No one told Taco van der Hoorn, of Intermarche - Wanty - Gobert, about that theory at this year’s Giro d’Italia.
The breakaway group of eight got out to a six minute advantage before Peter Sagan gave his Bora-Hansgrohe teammates the instructions to chase it down.
Approaching the final climb, 17km to go, what was left of the breakaway now had a slender 30 second lead. Their TV time was just about over.
Tony Gallopin and Giulio Ciccone, both former yellow jersey wearers at the Tour de France, attacked on the final climb with Taco Van der Hoorn and Simon Pellaud, the two survives of the original breakaway, in their sights.
Surely it was all over for the breakaway.
Yet, somehow, with 9km remaining Van der Hoorn and Pellaud were back out to a 40 second advantage and Taco attacked to go solo.
Bora-Hansgrohe were joined in the chase by Cofidis, Alpecin-Fenix and UAE Team Emirates also assisted.
No way. Taco can’t possibly make it.
Magnus “not” Cort Nielsen
It was the year of the breakaway at the grand tours, so by the Vuelta a Espana I shouldn’t have been surprised by the early move defying the odds but Stage 6 was exceptional.
On this medium mountain stage, the race skirted the coast and encountered crosswinds, making it even more difficult for the breakaway to succeed.
The group of five escapees got out to a seven minute advantage before BikeExchange took up the chase, for Michael Matthews.
Once the leaders hit the crosswinds it was the battle for positions that was doing the damage to the breakaway, as Hugh Carthy (third overall last year), Adam Yates and then race leader, Kenny Elissonde, were getting dropped before they hit the final climb.
The breakaway started the 2.1km climb to the finish line with a 20 second buffer. With the big favourites - Primoz Roglic, Enric Mas, Miguel Angel Lopez, Egan Bernal - hunting the win the break looked doomed.
Four of the five leaders were quickly reeled in. But Magnus refused to be caught.
