Yea, Cervélo-Bigla only had 9 riders at the start of the season, and with Small's one year contract running from mid season, Cylance picked her up at the end of that (they also need a bit of a hand with results after their main predicted points-scorer, Shelley Olds, got injured - she may not have picked up many wins now she's in her mid-30s but could have guaranteed a steady stream of points from sprint placements).
The course consists of a bumpy, undulating long course followed by several laps of a rolling 11km circuit with a short hill in the middle.
The startlist is, as you would expect, broadly the same as in the Team Time Trial, although there are a couple of changes. This means that the defending champion, Jolien d'Hoore, is not present, although last year's second place, Giorgia Bronzini, is in attendance. There are two former winners on the starting line though; two-time former winner Marianne Vos, who won in Vårgårda in a sprint in 2009 and from a small group in 2013, and Chantal Blaak, who led an all-Dutch top 5 after her late three-woman break with Pieters and Knetemann just crept over the line ahead of the bunch in 2014. You can see four hours (!!!) of coverage from that edition
here - worth noting commentators mis-identify Pieters as being Lichtenberg in the late attack, only to realize their mistake when Amy wasn't third from the group of three in a sprint. You can watch a more concise (25 minutes) summary of last year's edition
here. In addition to the two former winners along with Bronzini, there are a number of riders who've previously podiumed here who will line up in Sweden. Amy Pieters was part of the select late attacking groups and wound up in 3rd in 2013 and 2nd in 2014, while as in that video Rox Knetemann was 3rd in 2014 as well. Ellen van Dijk was 2nd in 2011, after the bunch didn't quite catch her, Cooke and eventual winner Annemiek van Vleuten - finishing with no time gap.
As you can see, while last year's edition finished with a sprint being contested, in other years we have seen late attacking being the way to triumph in Vårgårda; 2012's edition, won by Iris Slappendel, was perhaps the most broken up of all, with a small group splintering repeatedly and the main body of the bunch some nine minutes down. As a result, both sprinters and tough rouleurs with time trial skills will come into consideration for potential victors. Obviously this will favour certain riders who have all-round classic skills, and it is for that reason that you would anticipate the biggest teams to be the favourites - especially those riders who haven't expended as much energy in Rio as others. With several riders resting for opposition teams, therefore, you'd have to say that, as ever, the unstoppable orange juggernaut of Boels-Dolmans looks to be in the driving seat. Chantal Blaak is perhaps the most obvious call, having had a great season, having won here before, and not having made the trip to Rio due to the difficult parcours. However, Ellen van Dijk is also a former podium rider here and a stupendously powerful engine who'll want to leave the team on a high, and of course there's Lizzie Armitstead, whose reintegration into the bunch following the controversy over her racing in Brazil will be an interesting subplot, but whose strength and power this season has been unmatched on rolling and punchy courses. For Rabo, you would suspect that they have one major bullet in their gun, but that bullet is a very powerful, dangerous Marianne Vos-shaped one. Knetemann has podiumed here before but would need the right composition of a move to take the win, although with her previously downright-appalling sprint having improved enough for her to beat at least
somebody maybe van der Breggen becomes more of a threat than she may have been previously when she practically needed to come to the line solo. I'm sure we will see Anouska Koster attack at some point as well, it seems Rabo's idea of controlling the race is to constantly make others chase them, and Koster is extremely combative.
Chief among the teams chasing will probably be Wiggle; they have riders who've been on the podium of all of the last three editions, but would appear to be banking on the sprint, with Bronzini, Pieters and Hosking all starting. It's quite likely the racing may be too aggressive for Hosking, who may nonetheless be the fastest outright sprinter on the startlist, to make it over the hills, but Pieters will likely be able to monitor moves and be one of the fastest finishers in most groups she can get into. The Canyon team may be well suited to this, as while Hannah Barnes may fall into the same position as Hosking, they can afford to wait for a sprint if the racing is conservative because of that option, but they also have a very strong contender for this kind of course in Tiffany Cromwell, who was perplexingly left out of the Australian national selection for the Olympics, and also Cecchini who is well suited because she is combative, useful in short-to-mid-length TTs, went wonderfully in not dissimilar terrain in Thüringen and has a good finish on her, as well as a touch of inspiration after her boyfriend Elia Viviani won an Olympic gold last week! Oh, and Trixi Worrack will attack. It just is going to happen.
From the teams beyond the biggest ones, there are a few contenders worth drawing your eyes to. Chief among them, most certainly, is the Finnish champion Lotta Lepistö, riding for Cervélo. She has been run into the ground this season with the team's low number of riders, however she has progressed in the last couple of years to being one of the pre-eminent sprinters in the women's péloton, especially over this kind of terrain as she is noticeably more durable than she had been in previous years now, winning stages like the first one of the GP Elsy Jacobs over hilly terrain in Luxembourg and placing third in the Pajot Hills Classic. The race may not be tough enough for the team's other main weapon, Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio, but she was able to make the most of the terrain in the not-overly-hilly Tour of Britain and is decent against the clock so there are possibilities there. Cylance will want to have something to say with Carmen Small being in form, but as they can't rely on a sprint with the likes of Gutiérrez and Barbieri against this field we may well see her and/or Ratto active in the closing stages. Liv-Plantur starting a rider down may affect their plans, but Leah Kirchmann is a very strong rider who we can expect to see monitoring at least in the closing stages. Hitec as well are in a similar position to Cylance; they can't really rely on a sprint in this field, so I'd expect Lauren Kitchen, their strongest rider here, to certainly look to be prominent in the moves made late on. From the smaller teams, Lensworld will be particularly interesting because they have some strong sprinters in situ, with Maria Giulia Confalonieri having had an excellent Giro and Nina Kessler having been second in London.
Perhaps most interesting is Orica rocking up into town, having skipped the TTT. The team they bring is not to be sniffed at either, with Loren Rowney and Sarah Roy both very capable hands for a sprint, while Tayler Wiles has had some good form coming 2nd in the Route de France and Amanda Spratt jets in from Brazil to beef up the climbing strength in the team. Strange, however, that Spratty would get the nod to return to competition here while Gracie Elvin, who you'd think the course is more suited to, remains in Rio - although perhaps this is a consideration by Cycling Australia in relation to the Qatar Worlds where you'd think (sorry Amanda) Spratt will not be a particularly major help for the team where Gracie can be. From the Italian teams, two things to note: for Alé, Marta Bastianelli is sick so is likely not to start; this will hurt them greatly as she is a decent candidate to win if healthy. Instead they will probably rely on Tagliaferro's sprint, which will free up Jasinska and the Swedish crowd favourite Emilia Fahlin to do what they do best, which is be aggressive. For BePink, Amber Neben is in stupendous form but the race doesn't suit her and, at 41, how long she can maintain that form is another question. Ilaria Sanguineti is probably their best contender on this kind of terrain, but with Zabelinskaya in the team they always have a weapon; she may not have a sprint, but she's an Olympic silver medalist against the clock so if they give her daylight she'll be hard to bring back. Elsewhere BTC City-Ljubljana will probably continue their niche of making early moves but racking up placements around 6th to 20th, especially since while Bujak's form is excellent, the TTT would seem to suggest Pavlukhina and Plichta, two of their best riders, are running on empty. Parkhotel don't have most of their sprinting arm with them and field just about the most experienced riders they can. Koedooder is a strong rouleur and van Gogh is a wily veteran, but they're not a team I expect to see big results from here.
Finally, as well as Orica, there are some other changes to the start list; in addition to the Norwegian and Finnish teams a Swedish national team has joined the startlist, as has the small British team Drops Cycling, although according to CyclingFever the latter only have four riders in attendance, I suspect that's more that they haven't confirmed the rest of the starters yet. Alice Barnes had some decent placements in the Aviva Women's Tour and the Thüringen Rundfahrt so she has the ability to get over the hills, but seemingly at this stage in her development, she competes well in flat sprints and gets ok placements over more rolling terrain. Bearing in mind she only just turned 21 though, that's hardly a criticism, and the team's main function is developmental, so the number of WT entries they've managed to get is something of a coup for them. Likewise the young Danes in BMS-BIRN will be interesting to see, Ludwig is their best rider but apart from a lower end top 10 in Gooik-Geraardsbergen-Gooik she has been mainly a stage racer to date. Siggaard is the rider in best form though, after a top 5 in the GC at the Tour of Norway last week.
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