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All three Grand Tours, we’re now into the final throes of the 2017 season, with the
World Championships giving one last week-long festival of cycling for you to get your teeth
into.
Taking place in Bergen, Norway, the racing gets underway on Sunday17 September with the
men’s and women’s team time trials.
This is contested between trade teams rather than national teams, with both women and men
facing 42.5km of rolling roads, including the short but steep Birkelundsbakken climb
that will really test the legs with 12km remaining.
Quick-Step Floors and Boels-Dolmans are the defending champions, and although both should
be up there fighting for the top step of the podium, expect a very different race compared
to the pan-flat Qatar course from 12 months ago.
The team events out of the way, attention turns to the individual time trials on Tuesday
and Wednesday.
The women’s elite race covers a slightly lumpy 21.1km course with the Birkelundsbakken
climb again being the main obstacle, but the male riders will face a tougher test, with
their 31.1km event being finished up with a tough climb up Mount Floyen.
This 3.4km averages nine per cent and includes a number of pitches of significantly more
than that. Such an ascent at the end of flat course should suit the likes of Chris Froome
and Tom Dumoulin, although defending champion Tony Martin might still fancy his chances
if he can gain enough time on the flat part of the course.
With the time trial world champions crowned, the road races take place at the weekend,
the women’s event on Saturday 23rd September and the men’s a day later.
Both races will be centred around a 19km circuit around the middle of Bergen, with the women
doing eight laps to create a 153km race, while the men will cover 40km before 11 laps of
the circuit, meaning a mammoth 267km event.
While the circuit is mainly flat or rolling, each lap will include a 1.5km, 6.4 per cent
climb of Salmon Hill, which might not be tough on its own, but will be sure to wear down
the peloton and provide the launching pad for attacks later in the races.
Danish sprinter Amaldie Diderickson is the defending champion in the women’s event,
but has been struggling for form this season and may suffer with the relentless climbing.
Instead, expect a strong Dutch team including Annemiek Van Vleuten and Anna Van der Breggan
to dominate the race, with the likes of Elissa Longo Borghini, Kasia Niewiadoma, and Lizzie
Deignan also in contention.
In the men’s event, Peter Sagan has won the rainbow jersey for the past two years,
and is favourite to win once again, a result which would make him the first rider in history
to win three consecutive road world titles.
However the Slovak will face the usual stiff competition from a typically stacked start
list, and riders such as Van Avermaet, Alaphilippe, Gaviria, Matthews all involved, plus a strong
home Norwegian team including Alexander Kristoff and Edvald Boasson Hagen.