Belgium put all their efforts into under-23 standout star Jarno Widar during Friday's U23 road race at the World Championships, but came away with nothing after the 19-year-old suffered with cramps in the second half of the race.
Fielding a strong five-rider team, Belgium went into the race with the plan to work for Widar, who has dominated on the under-23 circuit this season, winning races like Liège-Bastogne-Liège and the Giro della Valle d'Aosta, as well as taking two stages and finishing second overall at the Tour de l'Avenir.
He did not start the under-23 time trial on Monday, which raised some questions over his form, but as the road race got underway, Belgium took control of the race, seemingly showing that Widar was ready to be in contention after all.
The team in light blue worked hard for Widar in the early part of the race, but he seemed to blow up at the key moment, leaving Belgium fighting for very minor places after going into the race as potential winners.
"We had a plan. Jarno Widar, he usually likes a hard race with a lot of fatigue resistance, because that is usually when he performs the best, at the end of a hard race. So this was our tactic today, to make the race hard, to put a hard pace the whole day and control, but whilst also trying to make a lot of damage," Belgian national coach Serge Pauwels told Eurosport.
"I think we made the damage, but in the end, Jarno was not at his best. That's something we have to expect, he didn't have the legs to follow the best riders."
More than just not having the legs, Widar himself explained that he also suffered from cramp before the Kigali Golf climb on the lap when the winning move went.
"I didn't have the legs to follow. I had cramps and then there is nothing to do," he told Eurosport. "My team came back and then I was just hoping that they'd go full until the climb and then I'd try again, but again I cramped, so then it was just completely gone."
The heat and altitude in Kigali made drinking and fuelling particularly key in the road race, but Widar couldn't point to a specific error that may have caused his cramps: "I don't know. I was drinking two or three bottles an hour, so I don't know."
Pauwels said that the team didn't have any prior indication that Widar was struggling, which was why they weren't able to change tactics any earlier.
"We only knew when he couldn't follow the first attacks," he said. "It was also up to him to communicate if, for example, he didn't feel 100 per cent. But he always believed until probably four laps to go or three laps to go when the best riders went and he couldn't follow. Otherwise, we would probably have changed the tactic."
With no time to make a new plan, and having put all their eggs in Widar's metaphorical basket, the best result Belgium could muster was 21st, with Aaron Dockx, more than eight minutes down after winner Lorenzo Finn (Italy) blew up the race.
Despite his cramps, Widar valiantly finished the race, taking 34th out of 56 finishers, 11:45 down and clearly not what he wanted after such an outstanding season on the road.
Stepping up to Lotto's ProTeam from their development squad for next year – should his contract not fall foul of the touted merger with Intermarché-Wanty – Widar won't get another chance to race for the under-23 title. However, the Belgian team hoped that the young start wouldn't dwell on Friday's missed opportunity for too long.
"He has a bright future, and probably in ten years' time the missed world title as an under-23 will be just a detail on his palmarès," Pauwels said. "But of course today he will be disappointed."
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