World Championship 2025: Men’s RR, September 28

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Who will win the WC 2025 RR?


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Feb 20, 2012
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Yeh, maybe my memory is a bit *** aha. 2021 is my head felt more Ardennes but then I didnt watch it live, maybe an internal bias because of who won.

But 2022 was for sure not a course for sprinters who are not Pedersen, van Aert, Matthews type sprinters. Over 4k vertical metres.

and Trentin is a 2nd tier kind "can get over decent hills" sprinter which was what 2019 was.

For example Phillipsen, Milan etc have had no chance to contest a worlds in career so far. If Cav had started career in 2017 he wouldnt have had the chance to win a worlds, when he had chance to win 2 over the 10 years from 2007-2016.
2022 wasn't hard at all, the altimetry needs to be completely screwed up if that was 4k altitude gain.
 
Apr 30, 2011
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? They fought for a medal. If anyone in G4 had had the ability to follow the chase group they would've done. I'd rather race like Pidcock and Hindley today and end up with no result than be totally out of contention. Like Bettiol in 2023.
They would also have fought for a medal if they didn't pull in the 5 man group.
 
Mar 31, 2015
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Yeh, maybe my memory is a bit *** aha. 2021 is my head felt more Ardennes but then I didnt watch it live, maybe an internal bias because of who won.

But 2022 was for sure not a course for sprinters who are not Pedersen, van Aert, Matthews type sprinters. Over 4k vertical metres.

and Trentin is a 2nd tier kind "can get over decent hills" sprinter which was what 2019 was.

For example Phillipsen, Milan etc have had no chance to contest a worlds in career so far. If Cav had started career in 2017 he wouldnt have had the chance to win a worlds, when he had chance to win 2 over the 10 years from 2007-2016.
I agree in general – Leuven was harder than a standard Flanders course, but easier than an Amstel, but I think Yorkshire was a good well-balanced race, and you had people like Kristoff in the second group in 2022. 2023 I loved because it was a unique race.

2018, 2020, 2024, 2025, 2026 and 2027 are all very climber friendly. I think 6/10 for climbers is too much, but I suppose before that we only had one climber friendly route between 2010-2017 so in the long run it balances?
 
Oct 2, 2023
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2022 wasn't hard at all, the altimetry needs to be completely screwed up if that was 4k altitude gain.

Looking at the profile yeh, it is because of the 500m hill towards the start which was pretty irrelevant.

and then 12x ascents of mount pleasant.

But still, what sprinters are getting over 1.1km at almost 8% 12x with leading ardennes guys? Probably none of Phillipsen, Kooij, Milan, Merlier (probably best 4 sprinters on earth right now) would if they re-ran that course tomorrow.

I would still say it was not really one for even sprinters who are "solid" climbers and instead only really maybe ~10 of the best 25 sprinters who could contest in a perfect world for them.
 
Feb 20, 2012
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Looking at the profile yeh, it is because of the 500m hill towards the start which was pretty irrelevant.

and then 12x ascents of mount pleasant.

But still, what sprinters are getting over 1.1km at almost 8% 12x with leading ardennes guys? Probably none of Phillipsen, Kooij, Milan, Merlier (probably best 4 sprinters on earth right now) would if they re-ran that course tomorrow.

I would still say it was not really one for even sprinters who are "solid" climbers and instead only really maybe ~10 of the best 25 sprinters who could contest in a perfect world for them.
It's not that it's 12 climbs, it's that they're perfectly spaced out with perfect recovery inbetween. If they're concentrated much more, then yes it becomes much more Ardennes friendly. But the fact that Laporte got 2nd is extremely telling of the real difficulty of that route.
 
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May 6, 2021
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No UCI points awarded because less than 25% of the riders finished

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Apr 21, 2025
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I didn't find that as boring as I expected, mainly due to the WWRDN factor (what will Remco do next). I *still* don't understand why he insisted on that second bike change when the car was nowhere near.

I find it hard to be salty about Pogacar winning again. I appreciate why people don't like it, but ultimately he is the best rider in the world. It feels fitting that he should be world champion two years in a row. I wish next year wasn't another good course for him though. We could do with a flatter parcours and Pog taking a year off to do the Vuelta instead.

Finally, I saw a lot of comments saying that del Toro was blatantly just riding as Pogacar's domestique. Surely after his recent run of results, del Toro probably quite fancied his chances if the pair could stay away? Even if he thought he could never win, he likely thought it was his best shot at a medal.
 
Feb 20, 2012
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Finally, I saw a lot of comments saying that del Toro was blatantly just riding as Pogacar's domestique. Surely after his recent run of results, del Toro probably quite fancied his chances if the pair could stay away?
Pogacar was literally thanking him for his service before he dropped him.

The notion that Del Toro thought he could go all the way with Pogacar is just not serious to me, unless Del Toro is just an unserious person
 
Apr 21, 2025
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Pogacar was literally thanking him for his service before he dropped him.

The notion that Del Toro thought he could go all the way with Pogacar is just not serious to me, unless Del Toro is just an unserious person
I think del Toro probably has quite a lot of faith in himself after this year. Might be misplaced in a race against Pogacar, but I still think he thought he'd have a chance of staying away for a medal.
 
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Sep 5, 2016
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I think del Toro probably has quite a lot of faith in himself after this year. Might be misplaced in a race against Pogacar, but I still think he thought he'd have a chance of staying away for a medal.
Del Toro won 11 races this year and Gravel Worlds isn't done. Losing to Pogacar is nothing to be ashamed of.. and training with him in Kigali and agreeing to try a breakaway was a bold move.
Remco looked to be the strongest rider in Rwanda.
 
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Sep 5, 2016
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Says a lot about how exciting the race isn't that the past few pages are >50% Pogacar fanboys.
I like history as much as Pogacar. I am happy I get to witness some of these events..
I didn't love Tom Brady .. I loved Wayne Gretzky..still do.. Sports history is fun when you get to watch it..