Paris was all about the rings, Zurich is now all about the rainbow jersey. After the Olympic Games, the Cycling and Para-Cycling Road World Championships offer another highlight for cycling fans.
Around 1300 riders from more than 75 countries will take part in the major nine-day event from Saturday to Sunday in a week's time. 53 races will be held, 850,000 spectators are expected to line the routes and around 350 million will watch on TV.
For Swiss Cycling, the title fights in front of a home crowd come at a favorable moment, even though Marlen Reusser, the biggest trump card, is missing. Post-Covid syndrome has kept the Bernese athlete away from top-level sport for months. With Marc Hirschi in the elite road race, Stefan Küng and Stefan Bissegger in the time trial, a broad-based women's team, U23 gold medal candidate Jan Christen and an ambitious para-sport team, Switzerland will not only have to be content with the role of host, but should also celebrate winning medals.
Patrick Müller, head of sport at the national federation, is not venturing too far ahead with his predictions. He does confirm that the aim is to win medals. "Whether this works or not, however, depends on factors that we have little or no influence on, not least due to the very high performance density. We therefore define our goal as offering the athletes the best possible framework conditions. The athletes should be able to perform at their best on day X."
(Almost) everyone is there
The performance density is indeed high: Slovenia's Tour de France dominator Tadej Pogacar, world champion Mathieu van der Poel from the Netherlands and Belgium's Olympic triumphant Remco Evenepoel lead the men's field. Only the Belgian Wout van Aert, who crashed at the Vuelta, is missing. Tour specialist Jonas Vingegaard will also not be racing in Zurich. However, the two-time Tour de France winner from Denmark would not have been one of the favorites.
The top three in the women's race are Lotte Kopecky from Belgium (she won the highly competitive Tour de Romandie two weeks ago), Demi Vollering from the Netherlands (an all-rounder who lives in Switzerland) and Katarzyna Niewiadoma (the Polish rider beat Vollering by a few seconds in the Tour de France).
The Swiss trump cards
Despite the big names, the Swiss team also has medal chances in the most prestigious races. Marc Hirschi has won all of his last five races, two of which were World Tour events. The tough course in the elite road race at the end of the title fights is tailor-made for the in-form Bernese rider. There will be no random winners, but the course is not designed for climbing specialists either.
After crashes and a lot of bad luck in close decisions, Stefan Küng may have luck on his side. However, the rider from Thurgau, who is considered to have slightly more potential on the world championship course than Stefan Bissegger, will not only have to prevail against defending champion Evenepoel or Pogacar in the time trial. Filippo Ganna, the 2020 and 2021 world champion and 2023 world championship silver medallist, the now four-time Vuelta winner Primoz Roglic and the 20-year-old Brit Joshua Tarling are also there.
Switzerland has to defend its title in the mixed team time trial. In Marlen Reusser, however, the locomotive in the women's race, in whose slipstream her colleagues have recently excelled, is missing. As at the Olympic Games in Paris, the Bernese athlete is likely to be replaced by lateral entrant Elena Hartmann. The 33-year-old from Graubünden comes from a triathlon background, has only been riding in a professional team for a year and is performing particularly well against the clock. In the women's road race, hopes are pinned on Elise Chabbey and Noemi Rüegg.
SDA
