This Sunday’s team time trial world championships is the odd one out on the calendar several times over, whether it’s the trade teams gathering for the Worlds which is otherwise all about competing nations or the presence of a team time trial race outside of a stage race, a rarity these days. Here’s a look at the format and the contenders for the first title of Bergen 2017.
It takes something special to unite all the World Tour teams. Normally they’re in competition but also have opposite views, or at least their owners and managers can often clash on a range of issues. Now all 18 teams have decided to boycott the upcoming team time trial event at the World Championships in Qatar during October. You might not care too much for this event but the boycott is about a lot more than this one event.
Richmond, city of tobacco and the home of the Lucky Strike brand. What better place for Peter Sagan to strike once? The Slovakian launched his attack on 23rd Street, flying past Greg Van Avermaet who’d had the same idea, only slower, and then using the twisting descent to extend his lead. This was the moment the race was won.
An open course that’s got just enough difficulties for riders to exploit in order to slip the sprinters, Sunday’s men’s road race promises and uncertain race with tension that ratchets up lap after lap.
Legend has it that you’ll find a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Science might disprove this but this week there are many rainbow jerseys in Virginia this week and it’s all a terrific money spinner for the UCI.
This Sunday’s team time trial world championships is the odd one out on the calendar for several reasons, whether it’s the trade teams gathering for the worlds which is all about competing nations or the presence of a team time trial race outside of a stage race, a rarity these days. Here’s a look at the format and the contenders for the first title in Richmond 2015.
Cycling has many season long stories and sub-plots if you know where to look. One of them is qualifying for the World Championships in September.Nations qualify via the UCI rankings and the more UCI points a nation’s riders have, the larger the team it can bring to support its contenders for the rainbow jersey.
Here’s a reminder of the qualifying rules for the men’s road race and a look at the current state of play before selection is made in less than a week’s time.
Michał Kwiatkowski drops the last of a four man group on the final climb of the Mirador above Ponferrada. He’d slipped the bunch on the descent with risky move, both for his safety on wet roads but tactically as there were four riders to get in his way up ahead. He seemed to take a breather before accelerating again and now solo he was never caught again. This was the moment the race was won.
The most open contest in years? With a course that’s hard to define it’s up to the riders to determine their approach to the race and we should get a tense finale with sprinters and grand tour riders clashing.
Here’s the preview for Sunday’s race with the contenders and pretenders plus the TV schedule, weather and more.
Tony Martin versus the World? Last year he was so fast his average speed was superior to many of the teams in the team time trial event. His win seems certain, cycling’s answer to cosmological constant.
But if time trials rarely make for good TV new production techniques are helping and even with old school broadcasting there’s a race on for the other podium places.