A UCI Road World Championships located so far from the cycling heartland of Europe was never likely to be business as normal, but it turns out that it is more than the distant location, time-zone and reverse seasons that will make this edition in Wollongong, Australia an unusual one.
It is a rainbow jersey battle where spiralling travel costs and a WorldTour relegation battle that is seeing trade teams pull rank over national squads, is taking some out of the action before the racing has even begun.
Still, the big names are lining up so that will likely quickly fade into the background once the racing gets underway from September 18 to 25. Annemiek van Vleuten, Filippo Ganna, Wout van Aert, Elisa Longo Borghini, Marianne Vos, Tadej Pogačar and two-time defending world champion Julian Alaphilippe will go to battle on a road course heavy on climbing and a technical time trial circuit that is packed with corners.
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- Technical 34.2km course made up of two laps of 17.1km Wollongong circuit
- 20 corners per lap, a short climb, and a 5km straight along the beach
- Filippo Ganna going for third straight title but Remco Evenepoel also a favourite
Foss is in the hot seat with a time of 40:02
The course located south of Sydney in New South Wales, that takes in the climbs and the coast, looks set to deliver action-packed racing for World Road Championships second stop in Australia, with the first being Geelong in 2021.
The Wollongong event also marks the return of international road racing to a nation that has been isolated for the past two years after strict border closures imposed during COVID-19 pandemic were only lifted early this year.
The city circuit which starts and finishes in Wollongong is the core of all the road races, though for the elite men and elite/U23 women there is a start further north in the small hamlet of Helensburgh, as well as the Mount Keira loop.
The road races start on Friday September 23 opening with the men's junior category which takes on eight laps of the city circuit and then it is ten for the U23 men in the afternoon. Saturday it is four laps of Wollongong based circuit for the women's junior race, before the elite/U23 women's race strikes out from Helensburgh. The last day of competition and it is the men’s elite race that will wrap up proceedings.
The terrain in this patch of Australia opened up a wide variety of course options for race director Scott Sunderland to choose from as he returned to his stomping grounds of around 30 years ago to create routes worthy of a battle for the rainbow jersey.
There may have been some talk that it was time for a pure sprinters course, and subsequent expectations that it would be a relatively flat route, but when details came out it was clear that the only sprinters in with a chance are ones that are extremely hardy on the climbs. There is 2,433m of elevation gain in the 164.3km women's elite/U23 race and 3945m in the 266.9km men's elite event.
The elite races work their way from the hamlet of Helensburgh, still in the neutral zone through the descent to Stanwell Park, and then head down along the coastline, via the spectacular Sea Cliff bridge, towards Wollongong, where they will loop inland to the 8.7km long climb of Mount Keira, with an average gradient of 5% but a maximum of 15% around the halfway mark. The climb peaks at just 42km into the day of racing, so while it may begin the wearing down process, it comes too far from the end to tip the favour toward the climbing specialists.
It is a course that is more likely to play into the hands of the puncheurs, as once the single loop of the Mount Keira circuit is completed, the race heads through Wollongong again and onto the corner riddled city circuit with its repeats of the short sharp ascent of Mount Pleasant – 1.1km at 7.7% and a maximum of 14% – providing a likely attack launching point through the six loops for the women and 12 for the men. Still with the peak coming about 8km from the finish line, any solo attackers will have their work cut out holding off the chasers right through to the beachside run into the finish line.
The last 4km of the circuit is less corner heavy than the rest, giving the break less opportunity to stay out of sight. The lighthouse on Flagstaff Point will be a welcome sight for any attackers if they do manage to hold off the charge, as then there is just one more corner with less than 500m to go and a final dash for the finish line on Marine Drive. Though if it is a group, albeit likely a small one, that is contesting a sprint that's the point where riders will be hoping they are well-positioned to come out from the wheel of either a friend or foe so they can take a rainbow victory.
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