Former Olympic champion Greg Van Avermaet made his debut within the Unbound Gravel 200 on Saturday, racing to seventh place behind winner Lachlan Morton (EF Education-EasyPost). The retired WorldTour street star had combined emotions after making the lead group solely to puncture and should chase again on twice.
“I might have been higher,” Van Avermaet informed Cyclingnews and Cycling Weekly as he sat on a patch of grass lined in mud after ending seventh in his debut at Unbound Gravel 200.
“I had two flats actually early, so it was actually annoying since you see the peloton in entrance of you and you already know that they’re saving just a little bit, particularly the favourites, and also you’re there alone, chasing again. That’s annoying. But it is like it’s. That killed my race, I feel.”
After 9 hours, 16 minutes and 34 seconds of gravel-pounding, full-gas racing throughout the Flint Hills of Kansas, Van Avermaet was requested if he would return subsequent yr. He laughed, saying, “That’s not the most effective second to ask that, I feel. If you ask everyone now, the reply is at all times going to be ‘no’.”
However, Van Avermaet appeared pleased with his accomplishment of preventing again and ending the race with a strong end result regardless of the bodily and psychological setback of getting to chase again twice.
“I used to be pondering it was nonetheless early within the race, I’ve to make it again. You see them driving far-off since you at all times have these slopes. You simply should go for it.
“I made my journey all the way in which right here, so simply to surrender hope, it isn’t my fashion of racing, both.
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“If you see my outcomes on the street, I by no means truly stopped any race in my profession, virtually, or I needed to have a crash. So if I’m going to the beginning line, I’ll attempt to give it my greatest, and that is additionally what I did in the present day.”
Unbound Gravel is a unique expertise to even the largest Monuments of biking like Paris-Roubaix – it is longer than any of the fashionable street occasions and difficult to maintain the motivation up.
“It’s an extended race and 9 hours on the bike. It’s actually one thing that performs within the head. You see the kilometres probably not transferring, and particularly you probably have just a little little bit of dangerous luck additionally, you see 120km, then 60km… truly, I’m not good anymore and I nonetheless should go to the end. So that is mentally fairly a tough race.”
But there have been additionally some similarities, equivalent to chasing again when the peloton was in items.
“It’s higher that you’ve a flat, truly, when the race goes open, then you’ll be able to at the very least go from group to group,” Van Avermaet stated. “And once I got here again, I simply stated to myself, ‘Just grasp on so long as potential’. I bear in mind even pondering to do some assaults.
“It’s additionally gravel, so that you’re probably not all in a peloton the place you’ve gotten a draft, you’ll be able to have it just a little bit, but it surely’s not the identical like on the street.
“You should watch out for studios, you need to watch out for crashes. It’s a tough race. And in fact, you want good preparation to come back right here to additionally compete, as a result of in any other case it is even much less enjoyable. So you need to be actually ready.”
The Belgian veteran was half of a big contingency of European riders, lots of them present or former street execs, who made the journey to Kansas for Unbound Gravel. Six Europeans completed within the high 10, Tobias Kongstad of Denmark, Piotr Havik of the Netherlands, Mattia De Marchi of Italy and Simen Nordahl Svendsen of Norway going third to sixth forward of Van Avermaet, and Austria’s Sebastian Schönberger in eighth. It resembled an Olympic Games meeting of athletes for the US race.
“As I stated, when you can also make the highest 10, try to be joyful, and you shouldn’t have any regrets, particularly that is the way in which I attempt to experience. So it is tremendous,” he thought of about ending 4:47 off the successful tempo of Australia’s Morton.
“I’m tremendous joyful that I might comply with the main group usually because I did not have recent legs anymore, however I used to be able to following. And it was enjoyable. You know, while you’re nonetheless within the race, I actually get pleasure from it. When you are out of the race, it is horrible. So I’m used to being on the entrance, so in case you’re not there, it is onerous. So I’m tremendous joyful.”