A guide to the course and contenders as the first year of competition for a gravel rainbow jersey unfolds in Italy
The UCI Road World Championships medals have just been awarded and now, for the first time ever, gravel will have its turn(Image credit: Getty Images Sport)
A large part of gravel racing’s popularity over the past decade was tied up in the freeform nature of its events, but the growth of the discipline – promoted eagerly by the bike industry – was never going to pass wholly unacknowledged by the UCI.
After sanctioning the Trek Gravel World Series this season, 11 races in total, the governing body is now rolling out the inaugural UCI Gravel World Championships in Veneto this weekend. Whether the configuration of the event – or even its very existence – is fully in keeping with the nebulous concept of the ‘spirit of gravel’ is moot. There are rainbow jerseys in the discipline on offer this weekend and there will be some lofty names on the start line contesting them.
The headline act is surely Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (France), who is chasing her fourth rainbow jersey of 2022 in the wake of her triumphs in the short track, cross country and marathon mountain bike world titles. There is no question the Frenchwoman has the ability to perform across multiple disciplines, given that after winning the Road World Championships in Ponferrada in 2014, she went onto sweep up the cyclo-cross world title and cross-country mountain bike rainbow jersey as well.
There will be plenty of star power in the men’s race the following day, too, with Mathieu van der Poel (Netherlands) back in action after his ill-fated expedition to the Road Worlds in Wollongong. Other marquee names in action in Italy include Peter Sagan (Slovakia), Niki Terpstra (Netherlands), Nathan Haas (Australia), Greg Van Avermaet (Belgium) and Zdenek Stybar (Czech Republic).
But perhaps the greatest intrigue of the weekend will be provided by the very novelty of the event, organised this year and next by Filippo Pozzato’s PP Sport Events, which also runs next week’s season-ending slate of racing on road and gravel in the Veneto region. It will be a weekend of gravel racing, but not quite as we know it.
For one thing, the route is, by most accounts, rather more in keeping with the chalk roads of Strade Bianche than the rockier terrain on offer on the North American gravel scene. If gravel bikes emerged as a means of tackling a wider range of surfaces than a conventional road or mountain bike allowed, then this Worlds leans rather closer to the road end of the spectrum – hence the cluster of WorldTour riders tempted to line out here.
The distance covered is shorter than the norm for a major US-based gravel event, too, which was doubtless decided with an eye to managing television broadcasts. However, the men's and women's courses are both still longer than the vast majority of the Gravel World Series rounds which were used as qualifying events. More controversially, the elite women’s and men’s events are different distances – 140km and 194km, respectively – and on separate days. Inclusive mass participation may be a large part of gravel’s appeal, but at the inaugural UCI Gravel World Championships, the racing element appears to trump all other considerations.
The event takes place across two days, with all women’s categories plus the races for men over 50 taking place on Saturday, followed on Sunday by the elite men’s race and the men’s races for age categories 19 through 49.
The elite women’s race takes place on a 140km course that begins in Vicenza’s Campo Marzio, heads east towards Padova and then swings north to the finish in the striking walled down of Cittadella.
The day’s first obstacle comes just outside Vicenza, with the steep cobbled climb to Monte Berico (where Philippe Gilbert won a stage of the 2015 Giro d’Italia, albeit on the smooth, porticoed road to the Basilica at the summit. That difficulty is followed by a series of rises and dips before the descent towards Lake Fimon. From Padova, the mainly flat route runs largely parallel to the Brenta towards Cittadella. All told, there is 700 metres of climbing, with a little over half of the course taking place on gravel of some description and 31% taking place on asphalt.
A day later, the elite men will tackle the same route from Vicenza to Cittadella as the women, albeit with the addition of two laps of a 27km circuit to deliver a total race distance of 194km, with a total of 800m of climbing. 36% of the route is classed as taking place on unpaved roads, 18% on hard gravel, and 1% on the cobblestones of the early climb up Monte Berico.
On each day, riders set off in waves according to their category. On Saturday, the elite women’s race shares the course with races for women in age categories 19-34, 35-39, 40-44 and 45+, as well as with races for men in age categories 50-54, 55-59 and 60+. On Sunday, the elite men’s race has for its undercard the 166km-long races for men aged 19-34, 35-39, 40-44 and 45-49.
The rules, meanwhile, allow the use of any kind of bike – gravel, road, cyclo-cross or mountain bike – provided that it weighs at least 6.8kg, and there are no restrictions on tyre width. Wheel changes are permitted at feed zones, but bike changes are not allowed: riders must finish aboard the same frame on which they started.
The riders
Can Pauline Ferrand-Prevot add a fourth world title this year to sit alongside her trio of mountain bike ones? (Image credit: Getty Images)
Some tardy selection announcements from national federations means that the start list for the elite women’s and men’s events remain works in progress just a few days out from the World Championships. While riders were able to qualify throughout the season thanks to their performances in the UCI Gravel Series, riders can also be selected by their national federations, who have a maximum of twenty places in total at their disposal.
In the women’s race, Lauren De Crescenzo (USA) will be aiming for something of a double. Already winner of the past two editions of the long-running but unofficial Gravel Worlds in Lincoln, Nebraska, the American is seeking to become the undisputed world champion in Cittadella on Saturday, and she has performed strongly across the gravel season.
Unbound winner Sofía Gómez Villafañe (Argentina) is another likely contender for the rainbow jersey, along with Canyon/SRAM's Tiffany Cromwell who will be joined by fellow Australian road professional Rachel Neylan. Then there is Tessa Neefjes (Netherlands) along with Svenja Betz (Germany), who both have two Gravel World Series victories under their belt. Much of the attention, however, will surely focus on Ferrand-Prévot, not least given reports of her imminent move to a new Ineos off-road team.
Mathieu van der Poel on his way to victory at Strade Bianche in 2021 (Image credit: Getty Images Sport)
In the elite men’s event, all eyes at the start in Vicenza will be on Van der Poel, who returns to racing after his troubled trip to the road Worlds in Australia, where he pleaded guilty to the common assault of two teenage girls who had knocked on his door on the eve of the race.
The Dutchman, already a world champion in cyclo-cross and a European mountain bike champion, looks an obvious favourite for an event that bears more than an echo of Strade Bianche. Van der Poel will be joined in a strong Dutch squad by Niki Terpstra, Piotr Havik and Jasper Ockeloen – all having won at least one round of this year's Gravel World Series – and Unbound winner Ivar Slik.
The most recognisable names, for most, in the Australian team may be Lachlan Morton and Nathan Haas, who has made a successful switch from the WorldTour to gravel this season, but it is Adam Blazevic who has one of the strongest records on the Gravel World Series circuit this year, with two victories and a podium. Alex Howes, who recently brought the curtain down on his road career, is a key figure in the American selection.
Other road men with a pedigree for this sort of terrain include Peter Sagan (Slovakia), Zdenek Stybar (Czech Republic), Sacha Modolo, Daniel Oss (Italy) and Greg Van Avermaet (Belgium), though it remains to be seen how far their form will carry them here. Carlos Verona (Spain), however, has already delivered an impressive test run by winning the final round of the Gravel World Series in Spain last month, while Irish national road coach Nicolas Roche, who has dipped into the series during the year as well, also features. Meanwhile, Davide Rebellin, who ends his three-decade-long career at the Veneto Classic on October 16, wears an Italian national jersey for the first time since 2008 when he lines out in the over-50 event on Saturday.
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Barry Ryan is Head of Features at Cyclingnews. He has covered professional cycling since 2010, reporting from the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and events from Argentina to Japan. His writing has appeared in The Independent, Procycling and Cycling Plus. He is the author of The Ascent: Sean Kelly, Stephen Roche and the Rise of Irish Cycling’s Golden Generation, published by Gill Books.
