The fact, laid out on the workbench: Tim Wellens will not start the World Championships road race on Sunday 27 September in Montreal. Serge Pauwels had published his selection ten days before 17 September, without him, with Remco Evenepoel and Wout van Aert as leaders, then Thibau Nys, Maxim Van Gils, Tiesj Benoot, Quinten Hermans, Gianni Vermeersch and Alec Segaert.
According to Sporza, Wellens agreed a deal with UAE Emirates XRG in August: skip the Renewi Tour, help the team out at other races and, for that reason, pass on the Worlds too. On 6 September, he won the Tour of Britain. And that is where José De Cauwer adds the part nobody had seen: Wellens made an attempt himself after that win, a sort of public job application, but the selection was made the following day and all the places were filled.
A job application is a parts order, mind you. You ring on the Sunday evening saying you’re up for it, Monday morning the supplier has shipped the lot somewhere else and there’s no cassette left on the shelf. That’s not a willingness problem, that’s a lead-time problem. The wheel was already built, the bike already in the van. I’m not judging anyone, I’m reading the dates.
Around it, the debate took its usual shape. Philippe Gilbert, world champion at Valkenburg in 2012, criticised Wellens’ choice sharply: you must always stay loyal to your country. He recalled that at Mendrisio, where he finished sixth, his rivals were his trade team colleagues — Cadel Evans became world champion there — and that he still gave the best of himself for the Belgian team. De Cauwer calls the criticism “gratuitous” and points out that Gilbert was always a kopman (team leader), never a knecht (domestique).
Loyalty, project, employer: three words you can’t torque to spec. The only checkable setting in this story is a date. I’ll go and pump up the club’s, then.
Wellens, in La Dernière Heure, explained that after the Tour de France he thought he would not be ready for a race of that level and that his trade team remains his employer. The Montreal road race is on the programme for Sunday 27 September.
It’s true, we checked: Sporza.
