Until Sunday’s Maryland Cycling Classic, Sep Vanmarcke – once a persistent podium finisher in the Classics – had been assigned the role of helper. Injury and illness had thrown a spanner into his 2022 plans and the UCI’s WorldTour points scheme had forced the team to chase results from the top 10 scoring riders.
But, with 200 points in the bag thanks to his first win in three years, Vanmarcke is now among that top 10 and is likely to be freer to take his chances in a slew of one-day races through the season’s end.
Israel-Premier Tech are the newest WorldTour team and have been heavily hampered in the WorldTour relegation/promotion system which takes into account results by the top 10 riders each year for three years. 2023 is the first year a team will be relegated, with only 18 teams allowed in for the next three-year cycle. Israel-Premier Tech have been stuck in 20th place for most of the year.
So it’s no small feat to win a ProSeries race (worth 200 points) and it puts a big dent in the team’s 1000+ point deficit to Movistar in 18th, but for Vanmarcke it’s freeing on several levels. Before the race, he talked about having to work for riders like sprinter Giacomo Nizzolo to help the team gain points. After, a more jubilant Vanmarcke looked to a more ambitious future.
“Personally, I’m of course really happy. Yeah, I was supposed to work – and I was working actually because I was covering breakaways. At one point, we were in with three guys in the big breakaway,” he said of the 25-rider move that went clear in the first half hour. “We were supposed to work for Nizzolo, so at that point, I was not going full in the breakaway, because I had a job to do.”
But, with half the race still to go, EF Education-EasyPost put in a surge to split the escape and halved their numbers.
“We ended up at 12 [riders] and it was clear that we would stay away. So then I did my pulls like everybody did. And yeah, so it also was my chance from then on to get back in the points. And if I couldn’t win this race, I would be back enough in front to go for the finals in the next races also – so first of all, I’m really happy.”
Vanmarcke hasn’t been the Classics giant of previous years since he was part of EF in 2019 when he last won a race in the Bretagne Classic, and along with suffering through the pandemic like everyone else, this year struck particularly hard.
“It’s been a while since I won a race. It’s been already a few years ago that I was always on top of the game. And…
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