Another Worlds has come and gone, and whilst I might be a little jaded after a busy few days in Holland and more than half a lifetime of Worlds, it didn’t seem to be a real epic weekend in terms of the racing, weather, upsets, controversy or major talking points. Personally I blame the weather! Something so simple as a 5degC hike in the temperature on Saturday night, or Mondays’ snow arriving 24 hours earlier would have created the epic my Worlds addled brain demanded. The ground in Hoogerheide is notoriously poor for drainage, the course layout demands dismounts and running as soon as the surface deteriorates due to the succession of 180 degree corners on hillsides which create adverse camber cornering followed by slow climbs, so all but the very best are off and running.

It’s been a while since we had a real old-school muddy Worlds race with more off the bike than on; I know it’s not what we demand from the sport in these modern barrier-free days, but personally once in a while I want to see grown men cry and lose shoes in the mud. Anyone over thirty has heard of those epics; Hagendorf, Lembeek, Saccolongo... I was hoping Hoogerheide could be added to the list.
 
The World Cup two years ago on the Worlds course in Hoogerheide was a classic example; pouring rain in just above freezing temperatures, it exaggerated the difference between the great and the merely good. Nys won without a shiver, Wellens packed on the last lap (The Last Lap!) shaking to much to make it across the line.

The two Elite guys I was with on that day are amongst the toughest, hardest bastards you can put on a bike. Rob Jebb is a seasoned world renowned mountain runner who lives in the wettest, coldest, hilliest, place in Britain. Phil Dixon comes from Mansfield; a lowland pussy but someone with a personality that fails to register pain and suffering like a normal person. Whilst neither is going to bother the top 20 in a World Cup or Worlds they ran, rode, pushed and carried for an hour and afterwards had to be wrapped up, pointed in the direction of a hotel where they had to be undressed and gracefully placed in and under warm water to thaw out, such was their incapacitated state.

So that’s what I was hoping for last weekend but all I got was one dismount a lap for a fleeting flight of (shallow) steps. No slippy corners because the sun didn’t come out on Sunday to melt the top surface, no in-fighting in the Belgian Team because they have all grown up and had the “one for all, all for one” attitude that they have copied from recent Italian Road Worlds squads, no last lap shit-or-bust attack with the crowd spilling their beer as they try to get a view of the big screens, not even any decent fights in the pits because no-one was changing bikes.

When the talking point of Worlds Day 1 was a turf war fight in the team parking  between the Canadians and the Americans because one of them moved the other one’s tape or cones they had marked their pitch with, well, it’s pretty pathetic. It’s way better watching countries fight who can’t understand what they are being called; why fight your same-language neighbours?
 
So it was a drag race in the Elite Men’s race, a formality sprint in the Women’s race (did anyone think that Vos was going to be beaten after Lap 2?), an season long unbeatable German in the U23, and a homeboy Junior whose name escapes me victory; all worthy winners and exceptional athletes but just imagine how much more we would be talking if it had been like the WC of 2007?
 
With the next two years Worlds in Czech and Germany likely to be frozen, fast, criterium races it almost makes me want to start creating some greenhouse gases to speed up global warming and get a thaw started. Anyone else up for it?