Voeckler rides Colnago to 7th at World Elite Road Race Championships

Frenchman Thomas Voeckler fin­ished in a cred­itable sev­enth place yes­ter­day at the World Championships in Limburg, Holland, rid­ing on his team issue Colnago C59 Italia.

Having made the event a big objec­tive for the lat­ter part of his sea­son, he was the des­ig­nated leader of the French team and looked strong through­out the 265km event.  With around 80km to go, Voeckler fol­lowed a move by Alberto Contador of Spain on the climb of the Cauberg, quickly bridg­ing to the front of the race to form a group of 29 rid­ers, includ­ing two team­mates, Jerome Coppel and Maxime Bouet.

Despite the com­bined efforts of the French and Spanish domes­tiques, the group was caught by the remain­der of the pelo­ton with two laps of the 16.5km cir­cuit remain­ing. Although Voeckler had no team­mates left for the finale, he remained philo­soph­i­cal about miss­ing out on a medal.

“You can always do bet­ter,” Voeckler said in a post-race inter­view with Cyclingnews​.com. “It’s true that from the sec­ond last lap I didn’t have any team­mates with me, although some of them had fallen, like Tony Gallopin. But from the top of the Cauberg I didn’t have to make any super­hu­man efforts any­way, so I didn’t use up any more energy than I would have done. I’m dis­ap­pointed but I don’t have any regrets.”