Pidcock Gets Valkenburg Redemption with Dominant U23 Win in Bogense – Report, Results, Photos

by Mathias Dewaelsche

Coming into Saturday’s U23 race at the 2019 Bogense World Championships, the race was expected to be a battle between Belgian Eli Iserbyt and British phenom Tom Pidcock.

This season, the odds seemed to be in the favor of the Briton. Not only did Pidcock win more races of the two (13) during the season, he also took the World Cup overall and won the European Championships back in November.

Winning would also give Pidcock redemption from last year’s Worlds in Valkenburg. It was a day not to be remembered for him when he came in 15th and watched Iserbyt win his second U23 world championship in the Valkenburg mud.

The U23 riders hit the start line along the Danish seashore early Saturday afternoon ready to write the story of the 2019 edition of the U23 Men’s race.

Iserbyt Animates Early

The French U23 National Champion Antoine Benoist was the rider with the best start, and Lander Loockx (Belgium) and Italian U23 National Champion Jakob Dorigoni (Italy) entered the field as second and third.

Iserbyt was the race favorite with the better start, moving into fourth position shortly after the field passed across the bridge and onto the long straight to the far side of the course.

Midway through the first lap, Loockx stepped up to take the lead, and Iserbyt grabbed his wheel. Later in the first circuit, Iserbyt then took the lead and attacked. Loockx played the role of a teammate by stopping pedaling and allowing Iserbyt to press his advantage.

With Iserbyt off to a small lead, Benoist recognized the danger of the Belgian setup and quickly closed the gap. With Pidcock still limping behind the leaders, Iserbyt pushed again toward the start/finish straight. This time Swiss U23 national champ Loris Rouiller followed the move.

At the end of the first lap, a lead group of seven formed at the front with Iserbyt, Pidcock, Benoist, Dorigoni and Rouiller—the riders expected to perform well—and Loockx and Tim Kelich (Belgium) completing the group.

Halfway into the second lap, Iserbyt accelerated again. This time Rouiller and Pidcock closed the gap, and after the fast start, the leaders finally slowed their pace a bit. The brief lull allowed a few others to join the front group, which now included 14 riders, including Gage Hecht and Lance Haidet of the U.S.

At the beginning of the third lap, Pidcock went into Pit 1 for a bike change and dropped back to the end of the 14-headed leading group. It was a sign for Iserbyt to attack again. Initially, Swiss riders Kevin Kuhn and Rouiller tried to keep up but ultimately had to allow Iserbyt to go.

A few others closed the gap to the Swiss riders, and a chase group led by Pidcock followed a few seconds behind Iserbyt at the beginning of the fourth lap.

“I had a bit of a problem with my gears and had to change bikes, but yeah, I was going well. It all went alright,” Pidcock said about his trip to the pit.

Go Time for Pidcock

Three laps into the race, Iserbyt had been the aggressor and held a six-second advantage nearing the midway point of the eight-lap race. Then the moment of the race occurred.

Pidcock, as if chased by a lion, closed the gap to Iserbyt in no time and then immediately left him behind with a ferocious attack.

Iserbyt, who clearly needed to recover from his efforts in the first three laps, soon faced a deficit of seven seconds.

“I figured out from the races that when I’m in the wheels I just make mistakes,” Pidcock said. “So I thought I better go to the front now.”

Dorigoni joined Iserbyt in the chase, but at the end of the fourth lap, Pidcock already had a 20-second advantage on Iserbyt and Dorigoni. Iserbyt seemed to realize he would not get his third U23 world championship title, and took Dorigoni’s wheel, allowing Benoist and Rouiller to join for a chase of four.

When even more riders caught the chase group, Iserbyt, perhaps resigned to fighting for second, attacked again, but after a slow passage on the off-camber, he stopped his effort. The four chasers were now Rouiller, Benoist, Tomas Kopecky (Czech Republic) and Iserbyt. At the end of five laps, they were chasing 29 seconds behind Pidcock.

The next two laps, Pidcock stayed off the front while the chasers mixed things up. In Lap 6, Iserbyt attacked again and got a gap, but a mistake on the off-camber allowed Kopecky to come back to him. The next lap, Kopecky slipped on one of the steep inclines, giving Iserbyt another advantage. Benoist bridged to the Belgian to make it a chase of two at the bell.

Pidcock, with a lead of 25 seconds, did not take any risks in the last lap. He ran the barriers instead of hopping. He did grab a British flag from the large crowd in Bogense to celebrate the team’s second U23 World Championship winner after Evie Richards’ two U23 wins in 2016 and 2018.

“This is the last jersey available for the season. It feels good to go and get the rainbows stripes back on.,” Pidcock said about his second Worlds title.

Iserbyt held off Benoist to take the silver medal, and the Frenchman took third.

Gage Hecht led the North Americans with a 12th-place finish.

Spencer Petrov bounced back to take 16th, Lance Haidet 22nd, Cooper Willsey 23rd, Brannan Fix 24th, Gunnar Holmgren 28th, Sam Noel 39th and Tyler Orschel 47th.

Full results are below. Stay tuned for more photos and interviews. See our interview with Gage Hecht here.

For more from Bogense, see our 2019 Bogense World Championships page.

2019 UCI Cyclocross World Championships Results, Bogense Denmark: U23 Men

Rank	BIB	Last Name	First Name	Country	Age	Result
1	20	PIDCOCK	Thomas	GBR	20	0:47:42
2	1	ISERBYT	Eli	BEL	22	0:47:57
3	9	BENOIST	Antoine	FRA	20	0:48:05
4	44	KOPECKÝ	Tomas	CZE	19	0:48:13
5	25	DORIGONI	Jakob	ITA	21	0:48:17
6	21	TURNER	Ben	GBR	20	0:48:20
7	14	KAMP	Ryan	NED	19	0:48:28
8	30	ROUILLER	Loris	SUI	19	0:48:38
9	22	MEIN	Thomas	GBR	20	0:48:49
10	4	VANDEPUTTE	Niels	BEL	19	0:49:04
11	3	LOOCKX	Lander	BEL	22	0:49:14
12	34	HECHT	Gage	USA	21	0:49:18
13	15	VAN DER HEIJDEN	Maik	NED	22	0:49:33
14	31	KUHN	Kevin	SUI	21	0:49:39
15	5	GOEMAN	Andreas	BEL	20	0:49:41
16	35	PETROV	Spencer	USA	21	0:49:43
17	18	VAN DIJKE	Tim	NED	19	0:49:58
18	40	FEIJOO ALBERTE	Ivan	ESP	20	0:50:01
19	23	TULETT	Daniel	GBR	20	0:50:05
20	11	DUJARDIN	Sandy	FRA	22	0:50:17
21	16	VAN DER STEGEN	Roel	NED	22	0:50:20
22	36	HAIDET	Lance	USA	22	0:50:28
23	38	WILLSEY	Cooper	USA	22	0:50:32
24	37	FIX	Brannan	USA	22	0:50:35
25	17	HENDRIKX	Mees	NED	19	0:50:44
26	43	JELÍNEK	Josef	CZE	21	0:50:44
27	12	LEGRAND	Matthieu	FRA	21	0:50:44
28	61	HOLMGREN	Gunnar	CAN	20	0:50:55
29	2	KIELICH	Timo	BEL	20	0:50:56
30	24	MASON	Cameron	GBR	19	0:50:58
31	59	KESS	Nicolas	LUX	19	0:51:07
32	58	ULIK	Matej	SVK	22	0:51:08
33	46	MAYER	Daniel	CZE	22	0:51:09
34	27	FOLCARELLI	Antonio	ITA	21	0:51:10
35	41	CULLELL ESTAPE	Jofre	ESP	20	0:51:15
36	10	FINE	Eddy	FRA	22	0:51:28
37	6	DERVEAUX	Niels	BEL	22	0:51:32
38	60	SCHREIBER	Félix	LUX	20	0:51:33
39	39	NOEL	Sam	USA	19	0:51:42
40	26	SALA	Stefano	ITA	22	0:51:46
41	68	CONROY	David	IRL	21	0:52:06
42	48	ANDRESEN	Andreas Lund	DEN	21	0:52:12
43	62	ORSCHEL	Tyler	CAN	21	0:52:15
44	70	VAS	Balázs	HUN	19	0:52:16
45	57	MÖBIS	Maximilian	GER	21	0:52:17
46	66	ODA	Hijiri	JPN	21	0:52:29
47	47	ŘÍMAN	Jakub	CZE	19	0:52:32
48	13	CRISPIN	Mickaël	FRA	21	0:52:39
49	52	STORGAARD	Christian Duus	DEN	21	0:52:39
50	42	MURIAS GARCIA	Xabier	ESP	20	0:53:03
51	63	LINDGREN	Emil	SWE	19	0:53:05
52	53	SMITH	Nicholas	AUS	22	0:53:06
53	49	GØTKE	Rasmus Wulff Nørholm	DEN	22	0:53:09
54	56	TÖMKE	Pascal	GER	19	0:53:12
55	32	DUFAUX	Loïs	SUI	21	0:53:21
56	50	BAK	Simon	DEN	19	0:53:59
57	51	CHRISTIANSEN	Alfred Thoft	DEN	19
58	67	EGOSHI	Mikuya	JPN	20
59	65	MURAKAMI	Koutarou	JPN	19
60	64	ÖSTLUND	Jonatan	SWE	22
61	55	BLAZEVIC	Adam	AUS	20
62	54	PROSSER	Declan	AUS	21
63	69	DARRASSON	Gustaf	ISL	20