It’s time for the World Championships!

By Brett | Permalink | 2 comments | September 24th, 2007 | Trackback

The up-to-the minute start list is here.
The Elite Men’s Road Race profile is here. The Elite Men will race Sunday, covering the 19.1 kilometre circuit 14 times for a total of 267.4km.
The Elite Men’s Time Trial profile is here. The course length is 44.9km.

First held in 1927, the World Championship Road Race is the most prestigious one-day race on the calendar. The World Championships are held in a different location every year. The race is, on average, 165 miles (265 km) in length. Some courses are brutally steep and are designed to provide for a showcase for climbers while flatter courses become an all-out speed contest for sprinters.
Riders contest the race in national jerseys, not their regular team-sponsored jerseys. This is the only race of the year where this occurs. Because the teams are organized by country solely for this race, strange alliances can arise during the race.
One such example might be a trade-team that has riders from three or four different countries. Although these riders may appear to be riding for their fellow countrymen, the chance for one of the trade-team team-mates to win may provide incentive for the others to work for him even though they are not from the same country.

Winning the World Championship Road Race provides a highlight to many careers and those who have won multiple times are considered especially talented. The winner of the race each year wears the “rainbow jersey” for a entire year until the next World Championships.

The “rainbow jersey” is a white jersey with five horizontal colored (blue, red, black, yellow, green) bands around the chest and arms signifying the colors of the rainbow. It is the second most prestigious jersey in cycling, behind the yellow jersey of the Tour de France.

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