Denmark

That’s a video of the World Championship circuit in Rudersal near Copenhagen. Note the on-screen altitude profile so if you are pressed for time, fast forward to the hills.

Yes, the hills. When you see the rises en route they are certainly not big. But the Worlds is all about repetition and attrition. They’ll do 17 laps and by the last three laps I suspect the bunch will be thinned down. As much as everyone says this is a course for sprinters, it is clearly hillier than Zolder, perhaps the last true Worlds finish for sprinters in 2002. The course could suit the likes of Philippe Gilbert and Robert Gesink.

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Each year the qualification criteria for riding the World Championships varies but the idea is that countries with a higher ranking have the right to send larger teams to the race. For example Spain tops the UCI’s World Tour ranking and it can start nine riders to the men’s elite road race. This is true for all of the top-10 ranked countries, so long as each country has nine riders with World Tour ranking points. The top-10 are picked at the end of the week but today they stand as Spain, Italy, Australia, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Britain, Netherlands, USA and France.

But another clause says that teams have to have nine riders with ranking points and both Britain and Luxembourg fall foul here. Britain has eight riders with World Tour points, meaning it can have eight riders in Denmark; Luxembourg has only two with the Schleck brothers but another sub-clause says Luxembourg must start six riders.

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