Holl and Unwin strike gold again as Great Britain women hit heights
The British Paracyclists Jenny Holl and Sophie Unwin continued their gold medal winning spree at the UCI World Championships in Glasgow, winning the women’s B individual pursuit, only 24 hours after taking gold in the women’s B tandem time trial. In a memorable evening session, Jody Cundy took his 20th world title, Neil Fachie and Matthew Rotherham won gold in the B kilometre time trial and Jaco van Gass won the men’s C3 kilometre time trial.
Earlier in the day, Britain’s team pursuiters had recovered from the setbacks of day one in the Sir Chris Hoy velodrome with a storming qualifying performance in the women’s team pursuit from the quartet of Katie Archibald, Anna Morris, Josie Knight, and Elinor Barker, making a return to competition after having given birth to her first child.
The British four racked up the fastest time in qualifying, ahead of New Zealand. But there was disappointment in the men’s team sprint, as Britain lost the race-off for the bronze medal to France and the Netherlands beat Australia
to claim the world title.
The focus will switch this weekend to the men’s road race on Sunday, which starts in Edinburgh and in which the world champion, Remco Evenepoel of Belgium, will defend the title he won in Australia.
The 271km men’s road race comes to a head in central Glasgow with 10 laps of a technical 14.3km circuit through the city. On paper, it looks best suited to Classics specialists such as Wout van Aert of Belgium and Matthieu
van der Poel of the Netherlands, but Evenepoel’s win last weekend in the San Sebastian Classic also marks him out as a favourite.
But with only one short, sharp climb on the circuit, of Montrose Street, it may also be well suited to sprinters such as Van der Poel’s Alpecin-Deceuninck teammate, Jesper Philipsen, who won four stages in this year’s Tour de France.
Van Aert, who left the Tour before the race finished to be with his wife when she gave birth, has not had his best season and was frustrated by his results in July. But the politics of a starladen Belgian team, which has the defending world champion in its ranks, may work against him.
Britain’s national road race champion, Fred Wright, will be hoping to sneak into a decisive breakaway move, while Mads Pedersen, of Denmark, world champion in 2019 and a recent stage winner in July’s Tour, is another contender for the rainbow jersey.
The technical nature of the Glasgow city circuits, with their multiple bends, has not gone unnoticed, with French coach Thomas Voeckler describing it as “unusual”. With so many bends, riders and organisers will be hoping the roads stay dry.
The Tour de France runner-up, Tadej Pogacar, a dominant force in one day races this season, is another notable starter, but neither Jonas Vingegaard, winner in Paris, nor his JumboVisma teammate Primoz Roglic will start. Pogacar is also scheduled to ride next Friday’s men’s time trial, in which Geraint Thomas will also be a contender.
But the Australian sprinter, Caleb Ewan, a winner of stages in all three of Europe’s Grand Tours has withdrawn due to poor form. Ewan was subject to fierce criticism from his own Lotto-Dstny team management after he dropped out of the Tour de France last month during stage 13.
“After discussions between Caleb and team management, Caleb decided that he couldn’t be at his very best for these World Championships, and therefore he has withdrawn himself from the team,” the Australian sports director Mathew Hayman said.
The UCI president, David Lappartient, has confirmed that the 2028 World Road Championships will be in Abu Dhabi and that year’s gravel racing World Championships in Saudi Arabia.