July 30, 2012 by Irish Peloton
Marcel Wüst wins Gold in the Olympics prediction event
Marcel Wüst is a former professional cyclist from Germany. He had a hugely successful career where he won 12 stages of the Vuelta a Espana (which puts him in eighth place on the all-time Vuelta stage winners list) and he is a member of the elite club of 82 riders who can claim to have won a stage in all three Grand Tours.
These days Wüst is perhaps better known as the resident bicycle reviewer for Pro Cycling Magazine. Some readers find his bike reviews to be insincere and repetitive and it is perhaps the case that you could simply replace the brand name being reviewed each week in the text and the resulting articles wouldn’t be too dissimilar to what we are currently fed (great lateral stiffness, fast out of the corners, fun to ride etc.).
Marcel Wüst - The only rider since Jean-Paul van Poppel in 1994 to win a bunch sprint of the Tour in the polka-dot jersey
But having re-read the August edition of the magazine in the wake of Alexandr Vinokourov’s victory in the Olympic Games road race, perhaps Wüst’s writing talents would be better utilised as a previewer rather than a reviewer. Have a read of Wüst’s thoughts having just ridden over the route of the road race in London:
Cavendish’s problem is that he is too good. No one will help the British team pull back a break if they have a rider in there. But the Olympics are too special for teams to sit back if their leader has a chance and says he feels good. It’s going to be interesting because the teams are so small.
You could end up with a group of 30 going into London with no real sprinters. A strong group, with the right teams represented, could stay away if it leaves the circuit with as little as 40 seconds advantage. Then you’re looking for someone strong to go at 3-8km out, like Ballan did to win the Worlds in 2008.
Leave a Reply