(Glasgow) More than 8,000 athletes and dozens of titles at stake: for the first time in history, thirteen cycling disciplines are holding their World Championships in the same place and at the same time, from August 3 to 13 in Glasgow.
Usually it’s everyone in their corner, scattered across the globe. Thus, in 2022, the Road Worlds took place in Australia, the track in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, near Paris, the mountain bike in the French Alps (in Les Gets) and the BMX freestyle in Abu Dhabi.
From now on, every four years in the pre-Olympic year, the different disciplines meet in a single place, where Remco Evenepoel, reigning road world champion, and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, muse of mountain biking, will be able to share the same canteen, somewhat like at the Olympics.
From Thursday, at several sites in Scotland, with Glasgow as the epicenter, 13 disciplines will award their rainbow jerseys during an event that the International Cycling Union (UCI) presents as “the biggest event cyclist of history”.
The Olympic disciplines – track, road, mountain biking and BMX – will be particularly scrutinized one year before the Paris Olympics. But we will also see more confidential sports such as indoor cycling, trial, Grand Fondo and para-cycling.
“In terms of exposure, it’s a bit like the Olympics of cycling. Disciplines less publicized will benefit from it and be highlighted, ”observes Florian Rousseau, director of the Olympic program at the French Federation (FFC).
In 2027, during the next “Super Worlds” organized in Haute-Savoie, 19 disciplines will even be on the program.
Higher, further, stronger? For the organizers of the Glasgow Worlds, which are counting on more than a million spectators, the challenge is “both exciting and frightening”. Because, according to Paul Bush, president of the 2023 Worlds who was already responsible for the Commonwealth Games in 2014 in Glasgow, “it’s the biggest sporting event in Scottish history, bigger than a World Cup of rugby”.
In sporting terms, the meeting represents a crucial step on the road to the Paris-2024 Olympics.
Especially for the cyclists who open the ball on Thursday until August 9 at the Sir Chris Hoy velodrome, where the various nations will want to validate their Olympic qualification quotas.
The opportunity also for strongholds such as Great Britain, Australia, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and France to mark the spirits in view of the Olympics.
On the road, the queen event of the road race will take place on Sunday for the men, while the women’s race will close the Worlds on Sunday August 13.
The men will leave Edinburgh and follow the Forth estuary to arrive in Glasgow where the finish will be judged after 277 km, after ten laps of a very technical city circuit, full of turns.
Belgium will start as ultra-favorites with no less than three leaders, defending champion Remco Evenepoel, handyman Wout Van Aert and sprinter Jasper Philipsen, winner of four stages in the last Tour de France.
Even if the route suits him moderately, the Slovenian Tadej Pogacar will also be there, unlike the Dane Jonas Vingegaard, winner of the Tour de France, who once again preferred to ignore.
The 157km women’s race will set off along the shores of Loch Lomond to cross the Trossachs National Park before also finishing in Glasgow.
Here too Belgium looks formidable with Lotte Kopecky, second in the Tour de France women, who will combine track and road in Glasgow, where she could be one of the queens of these Worlds.
Mathieu van der Poel will be another attraction since the Dutchman will aim for both the world title on the road on Sunday and that in Olympic cross-country mountain biking the following Saturday, where he will notably cross swords with another all-terrain star, the Briton Tom Pidcock.
