Toughest UCI World Championships Road Race Course Revealed

This coming Sunday September 30, Elite Men and Women will tackle one of the hardest courses ever devised for the World Championship Road Race

The 2018 Road World Championships route looks set to be one of the toughest in history, with organisers of the race in the Austrian city of Innsbruck including ramps of up to 25 per cent in the elite men’s road race.

The official routes for all of the 2018 events, which take place from September 23-30, were revealed at the 2017 Worlds in Bergen with the elite men’s road race set to cover over 4,670m of climbing over a distance of 258.5km.

The men’s race will start in the town of Kufstein and begin with seven circuits of 24km of the ‘Olympic Circuit’ before heading northwards towards the Hungerburg settlement in the north where they’ll hit a climb featuring 25 per cent sections. The men’s peloton will then head back towards the centre of Innsbruck where the race will conclude.

The course favours climbers who can descend well, like Vincenzo Nibali (Italy) and Michal Kwiatkowski (Poland).

Kwiatkowski won on a similar course in Ponferrada, attacking on the final climb and staying away on the descent. 

Julian Alaphilippe (France) is another favorite after winning the Tour of Britain. Team-mate, Romain Bardet (France) will also be another favorite

Primoz Roglic (Slovenia) descending skills are first class, remember the Col d’Aubisque in the Tour de France, he's a strong contender.

Other good climbers include Tom Dumoulin (Netherlands), who was second at both the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France, and Alejandro Valverde (Spain).

Adam and Simon Yates are Great Britain's hopes for a medal, with Simon winning the 2018 Vuelta a Espana triumph and his brother coming to the fore in the final week to support his twin brother’s victory.

Adam's descending skills are his weakness, his crash on the final descent on stage 16 of the 2017 Tour de France costing him a stage win.

Fabio Aru and Richie Porte have both pulled out of this year's Road Race due to bad form and illness.

**** Vincenzo Nibali, Michal Kwiatkowski, Julian Alaphilippe

*** Romain Bardet, Primoz Roglic, Tom Dumoulin, Alejandro Valverde