Races that finish in circuits

incog24

When a race finishes with several laps of a circuit, what happens if the peloton end up entering the circuit at the same time as the break complete the first lap (e.g. they end up next to each other)? Do they neutralise the peloton and let the group get some distance? Or does it get complicated as the peloton would generally be expected to be going a bit quicker than the break in the final stages of the race? I'm presuming this hardly ever happens as usually the finishing circuit is reasonably sizeable?

Lots of question marks...

blorg

As you state it is more likely to happen on a short circuit. This exact scenario happened in the final stage of the 2007 Tour of Ireland. The break lapped the peloton and the latter was instructed to stop racing.

Today's big aggressors Marcato, Berkhout, and O'Loughlin broke clear of the peloton after 62 kilometres of racing and worked well together to build a maximum lead of five and a half minutes. The main bunch then started to work to reduce the gap but appeared to miscalculate, hitting the finishing circuit over two and a half minutes back.

Although 24 kilometres remained at this point and it was mathematically possible for the peloton to overcome that time deficit, the short 2.4 kilometre laps on the finishing circuit instead saw the break lap the bunch and thus guarantee that victory would go to one of the three.

The main field was instructed to remain behind the break and the trio fought it out for victory between them.

incog24

Cheers! That's really interesting. How was the peloton's sprint organised? Did they resume racing once the break had finished?

blorg

Looks like there was a bunch sprint for fourth place, yes.