For 11 days, the world cycling championships are on the program and the French can hope for several medals.
This year, the World Cycling Championships include all competitions. From this Thursday and during these 11 days, 200 world titles will be awarded. Road cycling, mountain biking, track or even BMX events, the program promises to be very busy. From now on, this format will be renewed every four years, the years preceding the Olympic Games (Haute-Savoie will host the event in 2027). A reorganization which was wanted by David Lappartient, the president of the International Cycling Union (UCI): “It was one of the commitments I made during my campaign for the presidency of the UCI and I am proud to have completed it. Over several weeks, the host city and/or region will truly become the cycling capital of the world.”
One of the highlights will be the men’s road race on Sunday. The course is extremely technical with very few straight lines and many 90° changes of direction throughout the course. If the profile should allow a sprint finish, a short climb of just over 200 meters is around 2 km from the finish line and could allow a few riders to blow up the peloton like Wout van Aert, Mathieu van der Poel. As for the French team, Thomas Voeckler announced the composition with Julian Alaphilippe, already twice world champion, and Christophe Laporte, vice world champion, accompanied by Benoit Cosnefroy (Ag2r-Citroën), Rémi Cavagna, Florian Sénéchal (Soudal-Quick Step), Bryan Coquard (Cofidis), Olivier Le Gac and Valentin Madouas (Groupama-FDJ). Bruno Armirail and Rémi Cavagna, French time trial champion, are the two French riders selected for the world championship.
For the very first day of the Worlds, a first blow was recorded for the French delegation with the elimination in the first round of the French women’s team pursuit team. Marie Divine Kouamé, Mathilde Gros, Julie Michaux were eliminated after only setting the 9th fastest time, more than a second and a half behind Great Britain. “We didn’t know how to manage, get close to our record from qualifying. I insisted on that, we had to beat or at least get close to our record. We didn’t know how to do it. I didn’t haven’t analyzed the girls’ lap times yet, but I’m looking at the overall team time. Of course (it’s a failure). It’s the last world championship before the Olympics, it’s important to score points compared to our opponents. We will take the time to analyze this evening. It is annoying for qualification for the Olympic Games in the sense that it is the event where we could score the most points “explained Grégory Baugé . On the other hand, it goes for Florian Grengbo, Sébastien Vigier and Rayan Helal who set the fifth fastest time in qualifying, securing one of the eight places for the rest of the competition.
Here are all the race dates for these 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships:
Discover the start list of riders entered for the World Road Cycling Championships. This list will be updated as announcements are made.
The Men’s Elite Road Race will start in Scotland’s capital Edinburgh, at the foot of the dormant volcano of Arthur’s Seat, then pass through the Old Town before following the road to Glasgow to complete 10 laps of the final street circuit as the indicates the UCI website. In total, 277.6 km for 3,167 m of elevation gain are on the program for this event.
The online event will be to follow this Sunday from 12:55 p.m. on the antennas of France 3 and Eurosport, here is the complete program:
