After the Olympic Games, the World Cycling and Para-Cycling Road Championships are a new highlight for fans of the little queen. The heroes and the defeated of Paris 2024 dream of rainbow jerseys.
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Around 1,300 runners from over 75 countries will take part in the nine-day event, which will run from Saturday to next Sunday. There will be 53 races, 850,000 spectators are expected to line the course and around 350 million will watch on television.
For Swiss Cycling, these home World Championships come at an opportune time, even if Marlen Reusser, one of the trump cards, is missing. With Marc Hirschi in the elite road race, Stefan Küng and Stefan Bissegger in the time trial, a homogeneous women’s team, the gold candidate in the under-23 Jan Christen and an ambitious para-sports team, Switzerland will not be content with the role of host.
Patrick Müller, the sports director of the national federation, does not, however, venture too far in his predictions. He does confirm the goal of winning medals, “but success or failure will also depend, particularly due to the very high density, on factors over which we have little or no influence. That is why we set ourselves the goal of offering the athletes the best possible conditions. The athletes must be able to give their all on the big day.”
(Almost) everyone is here
The density is indeed high: Slovenian Tour de France dominator Tadej Pogacar, Dutch world champion Mathieu van der Poel and Belgian double Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel lead the men’s peloton. Only Belgian Wout van Aert, who crashed in the Vuelta, is missing. Jonas Vingegaard is not participating either, but the double Tour de France winner would not have been part of the inner circle of favourites.
In the women’s race, the top 3 are Belgian Lotte Kopecky (who won the highly competitive Tour de Romandie two weeks ago), Dutchwoman Demi Vollering (a versatile rider who lives in Switzerland) and Polish rider Katarzyna Niewiadoma (who won the Tour de France by a few seconds ahead of Vollering).
Swiss assets
Despite these big names, the Swiss team also has a chance of winning medals in the most prestigious events. Marc Hirschi has won his last five races, including two on the World Tour. The difficult course of the road race is tailor-made for the Bernese. There will be no room for chance, even if the course is not a priori favourable to pure climbers.
In the time trial, it is possible that Stefan Küng will have luck on his side in a major event after falls and a lot of bad luck. The Thurgau native, better equipped than Stefan Bissegger on the world championship course, comes out of a convincing Vuelta with this long-awaited first success in a major Tour.
But the competition will be extremely tough on Sunday in the solo effort, where the logical favorites will be the defending champion Remco Evenepoel and Tadej Pogacar. There will also be Filippo Ganna, 2020 and 2021 world champion and second in the 2023 Worlds, the now four-time winner of the Vuelta Primoz Roglic or the Briton Joshua Tarling, aged just 20.
In the mixed team time trial, Switzerland has a title to defend. But without the “locomotive” Marlen Reusser, it’s hard to aim for a podium. In the women’s race, the main dream is to shine in the road race, even if all the stars will have to align to play for the medals. Noemi Rüegg is in good shape, and Elise Chabbey is ready for a first major feat.
ATS, by Hans Leuenberger
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