Just a quick note

... about the results from the UCI Road World Championships in Richmond, that ended yesterday. And actually just about the results from the Women Elite Road Race. Because what is there to say about the Men Elite Road Race? Peter Sagan won, Michael Matthews came in second and Ramunas Navardaukas was third. 110 out of 192 contestants finished, 82 did not. (That's 57% of the riders finishing the race.) And there were no Finnish riders in this race.

The Women Elite Road Race, on the other hand, was both interesting and fun, as there were no clear favourites for this race. There were some crashes, a couple of attacks and for a while it looked as if Małgorzata Jasińska from Poland could win, but with 900 metres to go Lizzie Armitstead attacked, then dared Anna van der Breggen to begin the sprint which she did, but being cool, calm and collected Lizzie Armitstead won. Congratulations! Lotta Lepistö came in 40th. Unfortunately our favourite rider in this race Enkhjargal Tuvshinjargal didn't finish the race and Laura Vainionpää, the second Finnish rider, didn't start. 88 out of 138 contestants finished, 50 did not. (That's 64%.)

Lizzie Armitstead sprinting to the finishing line. (We borrowed this picture from UCI. Hope that's OK!)

40th out of 88 really isn't that bad! Especially considering that for example The Netherlands had seven riders, so had USA, Great Britain had six riders, so they were able to employ tactics, the whole team working for one selected rider. When you're alone you have to fight so much harder. We're not saying this to try to diminish Lizzie Armitstead's achievement, we're saying this to explain that 40th place is actually really good.

Anna van der Breggen from the Netherlands, Lizzie Armitstead from Great Britain and Megan Guarnier from USA. (We borrowed this picture from UCI. Hope that's OK!)

And Enkhjargal Tuvshinjargal... How can you not like a cyclist from Mongolia? She's pretty good as well, she won the individual time trial at the Asian Cycling Championships in 2013 and she is the 2015 National champion of Mongolia. Too bad she couldn't finish the race!

Enkhjargal Tuvshinjargal at the race. (We borrowed this picture from Heaton Johnson's Flickr page. Hope that's OK!)

(All small cycling nations deserve a little extra respect, we think.)

Ride safe!