It’s time for the 2020 UCI world championships! Odd to be just one week after the tour and before either the Giro or Veulta but its 2020 and here we are. The championships take place in Imola, Italy after Switzerland announced their cancellation of the event due to Coronavirus restrictions.
We are looking at two unique courses for the Men’s races this year. First the TT course for its utter simplicity 32km of flat road; and on the flip side a brutal 258km road race course with 5000m of climbing.
The TT course is straight forward. My picks for top 5 include Ghanna, Dennis, Cavagna, Van Aert and Dumoulin. This leaves Kung and Thomas on the outside looking in, but there can only be 5 in the top 5.
The road course has brutal climbs in its 9 laps of the circuit. There are two notable climbs on each lap the first with 1km at 9.6%, followed by 1.3km at 10.9%….9 times each! It will still require some punch to get this done so it won’t be a true climber that takes it. I like Van Aert for the win. Both Pogacar and Roglic need to be considered favorites but its an open question as to how their tour ‘hangovers’ are, both literally and figuratively…knowing them mostly figuratively. I also pick Fuglsang for a podium position.