The instruction is set: Lotte Kopecky, the Belgian champion, is the main card, and the whole team has to give her the best possible conditions in the finale. Around her, Lotte Claes, Shari Bossuyt, Margot Vanpachtenbeke, Julie Vandevelde and Sandrine Tas.
What television will show is that finale, and the rider who comes out of it. What it will not show is the one who slipped into the group that went up the road, not for herself, for the team behind. The national coach has a phrase for it. He said: “Before, most selections were built around one main card. You can see that is no longer the case. If a good group goes clear, it will be important to send a good rider up the road, in a luxury lieutenant’s role.”
A luxury lieutenant, right. The luxury in this job is being told in advance why you are going up the road; where I was, they said “you go with them”, and nobody put the word luxury on it. At the front, I couldn’t tell you. At the back, I can tell you that whoever does that job gets to the café when the podium is already packed away, and nobody asks her for her time. That’s de koers, the race, as they say in Flanders, as well.
Willems also said of the six that they “are not afraid to attack” and that this “can create tactical options for Lotte Kopecky”. Translated into the club car: someone will go, and someone will ride so that the move serves another rider. That sort of thing is an office. Someone has the plan, someone has the watch, someone knows where the wind is.
“Luxury lieutenant” corresponds to no function in the rulebook. I note the starters, not the roles. The roles are read in the classification, afterwards.
For the rest, the coach named the ones he is watching: Demi Vollering, who “is above the rest”, then Elisa Longo Borghini, Katarzyna Niewiadoma and Kim le Court. Four names at the front, then, and one job up the road that nobody will film. In the under-23 race, Belgium lines up Lore De Schepper, Fleur Moors, Tess Moerman, Febe Jooris and Emma Siegers, with a medal as the target.
It’s true, we checked: DirectVelo.
