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Forum thread started as ... Rainbow jersey for the World Champion
Aug
06
09:13
The rainbow jersey has been worn by Cycling World Champions since 1927!

It's called rainbow but technically the colours worn are the five colour of the olympic flag circles on a white jersey (for instance, there is no black in the real rainbow).

There is officially a term 'curse of the rainbow jersey' which means statistically its owner typically declines on his performance the following season. There are a few statistical and psychological studies trying to prove/find corelations. Evenepoel has a great chance to break the spell today although the curse probably took its toll already with his forced exit from Giro due to covid when he was really in his prime.
Cycling
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Aug
06
18:09
And the winner is...Mathieu van der Poel. He won on a solo ride with 1'37 advantage over the silver medal winner Wout van Aert. Pogacar beat M.Pedersen to bronze in a sprint.

But MvdP made the rest of the favourites look like schoolboys. He just disappeared from their radar 22km from the finish line and they never saw him again even though he fell from his bike on a slippery surface 5km later.

MvdP won Milano-San Remo, Paris=Roubaix and the World Champs in one season, an achievement which was never matched, even by the might Eddie Merckx.

First gold for the Netherlands since 1985 (Joop Zoetemelk)!

Well deserved after he totally devoted his TdF individual ambitions to become the leadout man for Philipsen (4 stages won by the latter thx to MvdP's assistance).

Nice pictures of Glasgow during the final rounds, too.
Cycling
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Aug
06
23:15
Interesting fact... Guess who the reigning World Cyclo-cross Champion and Runner-up 2023 are :

1. Mathieu van der Poel, 2. Wout van Aert !

I could find just one more road cyclist on the starting list (at least the names I recognise), Clement Venturini, so the rest are pure cyclo-cross specialists I guess, which shows how versatile MvdP and WVA are.

MvdP is actually the first rider in history to win both road race and cyclo-cross championships.

Meanwhile, Filippo Ganna, a recognised ITT specialist wins his 6th world championship at the velodrome today.
Cycling
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