Go Get 'Em, Helmet Boy
A world time trial championship preview
The first rainbow jerseys—and just to avoid any confusion, the UCI and Santini are not actually messing with the iconic design of the world champion’s kit—of the Road World Championships are on the line this weekend, as the elite men’s and women’s individual time trials take off on Sunday morning, followed by the age group competitions over the following two days.
Having previewed the world championships as a holistic sporting event, let’s get into the first medal competitions.
The courses differ based on age and gender. The juniors get a flat out-and-back along the eastern shore of the oblong lake that runs south of Zurich. I was shocked to learn that this body of water is called Lake Zurich. The men—boys, really—will go 24.9 total kilometers with only five meters of elevation change throughout the entire course. The junior women’s circuit runs 18.8 total kilometers.
This course is the purest distillation of cycling. The road is flat and straight, and with a U-turn at one end, it negates the impact of wind. The Race of Truth has never been more true.
The U23 men and senior women will run a 29.9 kilometer course that starts southeast of the city in Gossau, winds toward Lake Zurich, and up over a ridge that includes a few sharpish ramps of less than a kilometer. Then, the course takes a hard right turn and goes back up toward the start/finish line from the junior races. The totality of the course is downhill, but there’s enough climbing—including one hill, the Uetikon am See, that runs 2.4 kilometers at an average gradient of 4.9 percent—to cause some minor problems for bigger riders.
The men’s parcours is closer to a loop, starting in Oerlikon1 and running southwest on flat roads for a little under 20 kilometers. At that point, just southwest of Gossau, the road turns right and the senior men pick up the women’s course for the final 27 kilometers, give or take. At 46.1 kilometers, it’s half again as long as the women’s course, with 20 percent more elevation gain, but the big climbs are the same.
As far as who’s going to win…I have no clue with the age group competitions. I do know that the U.S. tends to do better in the youth and U23 categories than at the elite level, and that junior national champion Lidia Cusack, 17, will be suiting up in Zurich. Andrew August is the big name for the U.S. junior men. At age 18, he’s raced consistently, and occasionally at World Tour level, for Ineos Grenadiers. August’s last ITT was the prologue at the Tour de l’Avenir, where he finished 18th, but that was a much shorter race, and the top 55 riders came within 30 seconds of the leader. I guess he’s not the next Remco Evenepoel, but he’s competitive.
Speaking of Remco Evenepoel, all he’s done since taking the road race-time trial double at the Olympics is a little kickaround at the Tour of Britain. I don’t know what kind of form he’s in, how focused he is, but I do know that this parcours could not be more perfect for him. It’s not so uphill as to eliminate his huge aerodynamic advantage, but it is punchy enough to deter bigger climbers. Another stint in the rainbow jersey is his to lose.