A new Dutch world champion, four riders in the top five in the elite women's race at the UCI Gravel World Championships, and yet the dominant reaction to Lorena Wiebes' victory on Saturday was confusion.
The Dutch team, made up of 26 riders and clearly the strongest at the race, were on course for victory already through Shirin van Anrooij, who had attacked alone with 15km to go. However, riders who were ostensibly her teammates closed the gap, Van Anrooij was caught in the final kilometre, and a reduced sprint for the win occurred. She finished fifth, Wiebes finished first, and the post-mortem began.
Van Anrooij told Dutch broadcaster NOS, also reported by Wielerflits: "My chance to win the world title has been taken away from me.
"I just don't understand why it has to be closed down now. It's clear: if someone is leading the race and is certain to become world champion, and they're from the same country, you let them go."
"I understand everyone wants to go for the title, but [Italy's Silvia] Persico still finishes third. Otherwise, we'd be one, two, three."
In the end, Wiebes won, with Marianne Vos in second. "I'm just really disappointed," Van Anrooij continued.
"Ultimately, I think I was strong enough to stay ahead of them and become world champion here. I don't want to say too much about it; I don't want to say anything wrong. But I think this was my chance at the world title, and it was taken away from me.
"I understand that there are a lot of Dutch players here and that everyone ultimately wants to go for the title. I have nothing more to say about it," she concluded.
Gravel is a relatively new discipline, and has less of the same bonds between teammates as much of road racing.
One of the Dutchwoman who led the chase to bring Van Anrooij back, along with Wiebes' SD Worx-Protime teammate Julia Kopecký of Czechia, was Yara Kastelijn.
"I absolutely didn't want to make Shirin lose," she said via her Fenix-Deceunick team, Wielerflits reported on Sunday.
"I just wanted to get the most out of myself. Laurens ten Dam, our national coach, had also made clear before the race that the Gravel World Championships aren't raced with the same mindset as the European Road Championships. I took that a bit too literally in the final.
"I regret it now, though," she said. "I learn from these kinds of moments. I've since apologised to Shirin."
For his part, Ten Dam told Cyclingnews: "It's a gravel race, so tactics look strange, but at the end, it's also more or less individual [racing]."
"The two strongest were on the top two steps. But at the other end is the devastating last 300 metres, from Shirin van Anrooij. You know, she was about to win the Worlds and then she got caught, and fifth in the end. So she got nothing.
"I feel for her too, you know, like for that disappointment. So the feelings are mixed. It's just half an hour after the finish, those feelings are all dashed. I really feel for her."
