Former Olympic champion Greg Van Avermaet made his debut in the Unbound Gravel 200 on Saturday, racing to seventh place behind winner Lachlan Morton (EF Education-EasyPost). The retired WorldTour road star had mixed feelings after making the lead group only to puncture and have to chase back on twice.
"I could have been better," Van Avermaet told Cyclingnews and Cycling Weekly as he sat on a patch of grass covered in dust after finishing seventh in his debut at Unbound Gravel 200.
"I had two flats really early, so it was really annoying because you see the peloton in front of you and you know that they are saving a little bit, especially the favourites, and you're there alone, chasing back. That's annoying. But it's like it is. That killed my race, I think."
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After 9 hours, 16 minutes and 34 seconds of gravel-pounding, full-gas racing across the Flint Hills of Kansas, Van Avermaet was asked if he would return next year. He laughed, saying, "That's not the best moment to ask that, I think. If you ask everybody now, the answer is always going to be 'no'."
However, Van Avermaet seemed proud of his accomplishment of fighting back and finishing the race with a solid result despite the physical and mental setback of having to chase back twice.
"I was thinking it was still early in the race, I have to make it back. You see them riding far away because you always have these slopes. You just have to go for it.
"I made my travel all the way here, so just to give up hope, it's not my style of racing, either.
"If you see my results on the road, I never actually stopped any race in my career, almost, or I had to have a crash. So if I go to the start line, I will try to give it my best, and that's also what I did today."
Unbound Gravel is a different experience to even the biggest Monuments of cycling like Paris-Roubaix - it's longer than any of the modern road events and tough to keep the motivation up.
"It's a long race and nine hours on the bike. It's really something that plays in the head. You see the kilometres not really moving, and especially if you have a little bit of bad luck also, you see 120km, then 60km… actually, I'm not good anymore and I still have to go to the finish. So that's mentally quite a hard race."
But there were also some similarities, such as chasing back when the peloton was in pieces.
"It's better that you have a flat, actually, when the race goes open, then you can at least go from group to group," Van Avermaet said. "And when I came back, I just said to myself, 'Just hang on as long as possible'. I remember even thinking to do some attacks.
"It's also gravel, so you're not really all in a peloton where you have a draft, you can have it a little bit, but it's not the same like on the road.
"You have to be careful for flats, you have to be careful for crashes. It's a hard race. And of course, you need good preparation to come here to also compete, because otherwise it's even less fun. So you have to be really prepared."
The Belgian veteran was part of a large contingency of European riders, many of them current or former road pros, who made the trip to Kansas for Unbound Gravel. Six Europeans finished in the top 10, Tobias Kongstad of Denmark, Piotr Havik of the Netherlands, Mattia De Marchi of Italy and Simen Nordahl Svendsen of Norway going third to sixth ahead of Van Avermaet, and Austria's Sebastian Schönberger in eighth. It resembled an Olympic Games assembly of athletes for the US race.
"As I said, when you can make the top 10, you should be happy, and you should have no regrets, especially that's the way I try to ride. So it's fine," he considered about finishing 4:47 off the winning pace of Australia's Morton.
"I'm super happy that I could follow the leading group actually because I didn't have fresh legs anymore, but I was capable of following. And it was fun. You know, when you're still in the race, I really enjoy it. When you're out of the race, it's terrible. So I'm used to being at the front, so if you're not there, it's hard. So I'm super happy."
