Was last week’s Stan Siejka Classic, aka the Launceston Criterium, a roaring success? Or was it something of an anti-climax, failing to live up to its pre-event hype?
The vibe on social media was that it was a fantastic event, enjoyed by all who attended, which is exactly what the organisers would have been hoping for.
But my gut feel after watching the coverage on SBS was one of slight disappointment. I felt a little underwhelmed.
Had I been there in person to lap up the atmosphere I may have felt differently, as there is always a disconnect when watching events on television, but still… I don’t know, maybe I have become too hard to please in my old age.
I say this with no disrespect to race winner Neil van der Ploeg. He took on the wet conditions fearlessly, crashed twice, and still managed to come up trumps, holding off one of this country’s best sprinters in Steele von Hoff in the process.
It was a well deserved win by the Avanti rider and the second time he has won this event in three years. But the withdrawal of big ticket items Richie Porte and Chris Froome halfway through left a bit of a hollow feel.
While neither was ever going to win the race – they are not suited to flat, criterium style racing – they were a definite draw card. People came out in their thousands to watch them race. That they put in little more than a token appearance may have left some feeling short changed.
Yes, they will be chasing much bigger goals come the season proper in 2015, and any risks that may jeopardise those goals must be kept to a minimum, but if they are that concerned by being injured in early races, why ride at all?
Of course the weather didn’t help. The rain made the street circuit pretty slick right from the start, a fact highlighted by a number of crashes on the corners. Froome was lucky to avoid one such bingle and he withdrew soon after.
He is skittish on wet roads at the best of times and it was probably a wise decision. I suppose when it comes down to a choice between self preservation or putting on a show, self preservation must win out.
“It gets a bit sketchy on the corners where guys are crashing everywhere and the main thing for us was to stay safe,” Froome said after the race.
Fair enough. Disappointing, but fair enough.
The victorious Van der Ploeg played the diplomat when expressing his opinion.
“They (Froome and Porte) gave it a crack and pretty much everyone else pulled out as well,” he said.
Which was true.
Even last year’s winner, Orica-GreenEDGE whiz kid Caleb Ewan, pulled out, but only after he was brought down on a corner in the dying stages of the race. He wouldn’t have abandoned otherwise and would have almost certainly shaped the podium had he survived to the end.
Campbell Flakemore and Will Clarke did the opposite. They didn’t crash and should have figured in the placings, but neither rider would help the other, with both preferring to lose rather than assist his opponent to possible victory. Fortune favours the brave, boys, and on this occasion you failed the test.
It was a shame as they had established a handy lead over what was left of the peloton with only a handful of laps to go.
Both are talented riders, but talent or not, once they started playing games with each other instead of racing, they were predictably swallowed by the chasers.
In Clarke’s defence, he may have been marking Flakemore for his Drapac teammate Bernie Sulzberger, hoping that the race would end in a bunch sprint. Sulzberger eventually managed a credible third but Drapac could have finished higher up the order had they played their cards differently.
But victory belonged to Van der Ploeg and rightly so. He had the courage to take on the conditions, to get up and keep riding after crashing, and to never give up hope of influencing the race. And he won.
Good on him.
But for me, the whole thing was a little bit of an anti-climax. Maybe I just hopped out of the wrong side of the bed that morning.
What do you think? Was it just me? Or did other Roarers feel the same way?
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