UCI Road World Championships: Superstars and rising talents ready to shine in Flanders

Happy anniversary. The 2021 UCI Road World Championships, to be held in Flanders from 19 to 26 September, mark a unique week of competition and celebrations, 100 years after the first edition of the event. The world’s greatest stars and newest talents will chase glory and rainbows in 11 events: the individual time trials (ITT) and road races for the Women Elite, Women Junior, Men Elite, Men U23 and Men Junior, plus the team time trial mixed relay.

Time trial: six titles in four days of action

In every category, the course runs from Knokke-Heist to Bruges with a few twists and turns on mostly flat roads. The contenders for the Men Elite gold will cover 43.3km on Sunday. Monday’s battles will feature the Men Under 23 and Women Elite categories (over the same distance of 30.3km). Junior events will be held on Tuesday (19.4km for the women and 22.3km for the men). On Wednesday, the team time trial mixed relay mixed relay will wrap up the TT events over a 44.5km course.

Fans will have the opportunity to see a local hero in action as early as the opening Sunday. One of the favourites in both the TT and the road race, Wout van Aert would make history if he won both events, a year after taking two silver medals at the 2020 UCI Road World Championships. But the Belgian star will face extremely strong competition.

The men’s ITTs have been among the most closely fought events in cycling this year. At the recent European Championships, Stefan Küng (SUI) took a narrow win with Filippo Ganna (ITA) and Remco Evenepoel (BEL) joining him on the podium. The race for the rainbow jersey should be another must-watch.

The Women Elite time trial has often favoured American riders, Team USA winning seven gold medals since Karen Kurreck dominated the first event in 1994. At the other end of the scale, the last edition in Imola saw defending champion Chloé Dygert suffer a terrible crash. In 2020, Anna van der Breggen took her first victory of the week (the sixth for Netherlands in the history of the women’s elite ITT at the UCI Worlds), before claiming another gold in the road race.

Her compatriot Annemiek van Vleuten (ITT UCI World Champion in 2017 and 2018) is a strong favourite to take the rainbow jersey in Flanders, after winning Olympic gold in July. She’ll face strong competition in the form of Swiss talent Marlen Reusser, who’s enjoying a superb run of form since she took silver in Tokyo. She won the ITT at the European Championships last week, ahead of another in-form Dutchwoman, Ellen van Dijk.

Youth events return in Flanders after they had to be cancelled in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Will they see new talents rise to the forefront? In the Men Under-23 event, the contenders aim to succeed the three-time winner Mikkel Bjerg (DEN). The 2019 Junior UCI World Champion, Italy’s Antonio Tiberi, has made his debut at UCI WorldTour level this year.

At the Euros, the Russian Alena Ivanchenko won the Women’s Junior ITT on the road just a few days after she took three gold medals in the 2021 UCI Junior Track World Championships. Among the young stars expected to stand out in Flanders is Great Britain’s Zoe Bäckstedt, who is used to shining on different terrains: she’s a winner of the 2020-2021 UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup, a fresh world record holder in the individual pursuit on the track and the winner of the ITT in the recent Watersley Ladies Challenge on the road.

Road races: an action-packed weekend

The road races for Men Under 23 (on Friday), Women Elite (Saturday) and Men Elite (Sunday) will start from Antwerp and head for Leuven, with several laps on two loops designed around the city. The Men Junior (on Wednesday) and the Women Junior (on Saturday) will be entirely raced around Leuven. In every category the UCI Road World Champion will be crowned after tight racing on technical exposed roads featuring the infamous Flemish hills.

Titles in the youth category will be the first awarded. Who will succeed Russia’s Aigul Gareeva (Women Junior), the USA's Quinn Simmons (Men Junior) and Italy’s Samuele Battistella (Men Under 23), who all quickly impressed among their elders after their victories in the 2019 UCI Worlds?

The Women Elite race may be Anna van der Breggen’s last event before she retires to become a sports director. A third victory in the road race would be the perfect farewell for the Dutch star. And if she doesn’t find her way to victory, the Dutch squad will surely still shine: the Oranje stars have dominated the event in the past four editions with AVDB (2018 and 2020), Annemiek van Vleuten (2019) and Chantal Blaak (2017). Among the last riders to tame the Dutch riders at the World, Great Britain’s Lizzie Deignan (2015 UCI World Champion) will be among the leaders of the opposition against the defending champions.

In the Men Elite road race, Belgians hope they have assembled the perfect cast to claim the rainbow jersey again, nine years after Philippe Gilbert conquered the world in Valkenburg and 71 years after the local icon Briek Schotte won in the first UCI Road World Championships held in Flanders (Moorslede 1950). Local supporters will focus on Monument winners such as Wout van Aert and Jasper Stuyven, accompanied by the superstar in the making, Remco Evenepoel.

The Belgians will face determined and in-form rivals such as the reigning UCI World Champion Julian Alaphilippe and his French compatriot Benoît Cosnefroy; the Slovenian power trio made of Tadej Pogačar, Primož Roglič and Matej Mohorič; Portugal's João Almeida; and Denmark's Kasper Asgreen. And let's see how Mathieu van der Poel's back is recovering. The Dutchman wouldn't want to miss such a celebration of cycling!