Three Pre-Race Thoughts: Men's World Road Race Championship
A data-driven preview of Sunday's World Championship Road Race
With the Men’s World Road Race Championship taking place this upcoming Sunday, we will all be treated to the sight of the world’s top riders, at least those feeling healthy and confident enough that they can weather the tough course, duke it out for the bragging rights of a prestigious World Title. The 274-kilometer course starts in the Swiss town of Winterthur, in the shadow of the distant Alps, before making its way to a tough circuit around the city of Zürich. It then spends the next 200 kilometers snaking up and down a series of stair-stepping climbs above Lake Zurich before descending back down to the start/finish line in the city center.
With such hard parcours awaiting, the looming question is which one of the sport’s participating members of its superstar tier, Tadej Pogačar, Remco Evenepoel, Mathieu van der Poel, and Primož Roglič will attack first, and if anyone will be able to stop the red-hot Pogačar, who comes into the race with a strong Slovenian team and will be looking to add a coveted, and currently-missing, World Title to his lengthy palmares on a course that nearly-perfectly suits him. Check out the data-driven analysis and prediction below to see which winner this one-off circuit course is likely to produce:
2024 Course Profile
Key Course Stats
Kilometers: 274
Zurich Circuit Distance: 26.8-kilometers
Laps of Circuit: 7
Longest Climb: 4.1-kilometers long at 3.8% (toughest sub-climb is 2km at 6.2%)
Steepest Climb: 800 meters at 8.6% w/max gradients of 16%
Passes of Major Sustained Climbs: 10
Vertical Meters Gained: 4,291ish (some sources cite 4,470m/14,751ft)
Three Pre-Race Thoughts
1) This is Tadej Pogačar’s Race to Lose: Considering that the sport has a single superstar who reigns supreme on its hardest one-day courses, the following information should highlight just how big of a favorite Pogačar should be considered and the extremely (literal) uphill battle facing his rivals.
Using even the most conservative estimates of elevation gained on the Zürich course relative to the last 14 World Championship courses, we can see that it has been the fourth most difficult World Championship course since 2010.
When we look at the course difficulty rating, which takes both climbing meters and distance covered into account, we can see that it is the third most difficult World Championship course in the last ten seasons, behind the 2020 Imola and 2018 Innsbruck circuits
Last Ten World Championships Course Difficulty Rating
1st 2018: 19.45736434
2nd 2020: 18.06976744
3rd 2024: 15.66058394
4th 2022: 15.60674157
5th 2017: 14.47761194
6th 2023: 12.44485294
7th 2019: 12.33716475
8th 2012: 9.123595506
9th: 2021: 8.395522388
10th: 2016: 1.560311284
Adding up 2024’s top one-day races—the five Monuments plus the Olympics and World Championships—shows that Sunday’s course has the second-most elevation gain and, when race distance is accounted for, the third-highest difficulty rating.
2024 Monuments + WCs + Olympics Difficulty Rating:
1) Il Lombardia: 4,822m over 252km (19.13)
2) Liège-Bastogne-Liège: 4,266m over 255km (16.8)
3) World Championship RR: 4,291m over 274km (15.7)
4) Olympic RR: 2,825m over 272km (10.4)
5) Tour of Flanders: 2,172m over 271kms (8.1)
6) Milano-Sanremo: 2,070m over 288kms (7.2)
7) Paris-Roubaix: 1,414m over 260kms (5.4
While people can daydream about scenarios of a wide-open race creating uncontrollable chaos, the simple fact is that in the last two seasons, no one in the field has been able to match Pogačar’s inevitable attack or get out in front of him in a one-day race with more than 3,000m of climbing.
In fact, when we isolate the 28 race days Pogačar has targeted for a win in 2024 (I’ve filtered out sprint stages and days where the breakaway was let go), he has an absurd 68% win and 93% podium rate across all race types. Most importantly, he has a 100% win rate in one-day races with more than 3,000m of elevation gain.
2024 ‘Contested Race’ Totals: 28 starts, 26 podiums & 19 wins (68% win rate)
2024 One-Day Wins: 3
Races over 4,000m gain: 8 starts, 6 wins (75% win rate)
One-Days over 4,000m gain: 1 start, 1 win (100% win rate)
Races over 3,00m gain: 15 race starts, 12 wins (80% win rate)
One-Days over 3,000m gain: 3 starts, 3 wins (100% win rate)
Shockingly, the most barren portion of Pogačar’s 2024 season was his nine-day winless streak between Stages 5 and 13 of the Tour de France.
For context of just how good he has been relative to the other favorites, Pogačar has more wins in races with over 4,000 meters of elevation gain in 2024 alone than Van der Poel has through all race types this season.
And, when we look at Pogačar’s head-to-head record against his two biggest competitors in this race, Evenepoel and Van der Poel, in hilly one-day races that both riders finished in the top ten, it becomes difficult to overstate how large of a favorite Pogačar should be considered for Sunday’s road race:
Pogačar vs Evenepoel in Monuments + Olympics + WCs (w/elevation gain):
2023 Il Lombardia (4,646m): Pogačar 1st vs Evenepoel 9th
2023 World RR Championships (3,385m): Pogačar 3rd vs Evenepoel 25th
2022 World RR Championships (4,167m): Evenepoel 1st vs Pogačar 19th
2021 Il Lombardia (4,659m): Pogačar 1st vs Evenepoel 19th
2021 World RR Championships (2,250m): Pogačar 37th vs Evenepoel 62nd
2021 Olympics RR (4,582): Pogačar 3rd vs Evenepoel 49thTotals: Pogačar 5 vs Evenepoel 1
Races with 4,200+ meters of Elevation Gain: Pogačar 3 vs Evenepoel 0
Pogačar vs Van der Poel in Monuments + Olympics + WCs (w/elevation gain):
2024 Liège-Bastogne-Liège (4,266m): Pogačar 1st vs Van der Poel 3rd
2024 Milano-Sanremo (2,070m): Pogačar 3rd vs Van der Poel 10th
2023 World RR Championships (3,385m): Van der Poel 1st vs Pogačar 3rd
2023 Tour of Flanders (2,185m): Pogačar 1st vs Van der Poel 2nd
2023 Milano Sanremo (2,154m: Van der Poel 1st vs Pogačar 4th
2022 Tour of Flanders (2,289m): Van der Poel 1st vs Pogačar 4th
2022 Milano-Sanremo (2,096m): Van der Poel 3rd vs Pogačar 5th
2021 World RR Championship (2,250m): Van der Poel 8th vs Pogačar 37th
2020 Liège-Bastogne-Liège (4,352m): Pogačar 3rd vs Van der Poel 6thTotals: Van der Poel 5 vs Pogačar 4
2024 Totals: Pogačar 2 vs Van der Poel 0
Races with 4,200+ meters of elevation gain: Pogačar 2 vs Van der Poel 0
All of this data is to say that while he could theoretically lose, it would almost certainly have to come due to a crash or, in an even more unlikely scenario, a lost sprint to Van der Poel or being unable to follow an Evenpeol attack.
2) Forget the Outsiders; Modern Major One-Days Are Contested Among the Favorites: This short list of potential favorites could be criticized for showing a lack of imagination, but if we look closely at the last few editions of this race, and the biggest one-day races in general, it becomes quickly evident that the era of the darkhorse is long gone.
The main reason for this drastic shift is the rise of all-out racing extremely early in the race from the top favorites. This keeps them from being foiled by tactical gambits and forces their rivals into one-on-one feats of strength, where only the most elite riders can succeed.
To highlight just how small the pool of winners has become in the sport’s top one-day races, in the last two years of major one-day races and the last four years of World Championships, the closest winners to wildcards or dark horses would be Jasper Philipsen, the world’s best sprinter who also happens to be teammates with Mathieu van der Poel, and Julian Alaphilippe, one of the sport’s most electric big-race riders between 2018 and 2020.
Winners of the Last 11 Major One-Day Races (Monuments + WCs+ Olympics):
Mathieu van der Poel (5 wins)
Tadej Pogačar (3 wins)
Remco Evenepoel (2 wins)
Jasper Philipsen (1 wins)
Last Four World RR Champions:
2023: Mathieu van der Poel (7th in UCI Points Rankings)
2022: Remco Evenepoel (3rd in UCI Points Rankings)
2021: Julian Alaphilippe (4th in UCI Points Rankings)
2020: Julian Alaphilippe (6th in UCI Points Rankings)
3) So, Who Can Potentially Challenge Pogačar?: The course's difficulty means that only a small handful of riders can even be considered serious contenders to challenge the heavy pre-race favorite. Using the above trends as a guide, it stands to reason that we should only look for riders with a history of success in major hilly one-day races and are high up in the current rolling 52-week UCI Top Ten Rankings. The riders currently in the top ten of UCI Rankings that are taking the start on Sunday are as follows:
Remco Evenepoel (Current UCI #2): The 2022 World and reigning Olympic champion is one of the only riders in the peloton who can get out in front of Pogačar with a long-range attack and is one of few riders who can even have a chance at matching his pace after following a move.
2024 One-Day Wins: 2
Career Wins in One-Day Races with over 4,000m of climbing: 5
These are promising metrics, but his poor record against Pogačar in both one-day races and Grand Tour stages with significant climbing (Evenepoel has never beaten Pogačar in a climbing Grand Tour stage and only has a single win against Pogačar in one-day races that both finished) presents a very significant obstacle.
Mathieu van der Poel (Current UCI #4): The defending world champion is an obvious choice due to his current form, recent track record of peaking for the biggest races, and ability to win from a reduced sprint or a late solo attack.
2024 One-Day Wins: 3
Career Wins in One-Day Races with over 4,000m of climbing: 0
However, the fact that he lacks a single win in races with more than 4,000m of climbing suggests he could struggle to match Pogačar on Sunday.
Primož Roglič (Current UCI #5) — A proven winner on a strong Slovenian team who could benefit from the attention on Pogačar.
2024 One-Day Wins: 0
Career Wins in One-Day Races with over 4,000m of climbing: 1
Despite having a strong team, the perfect teammate card to play, and strong form, he has only won a single Monument in his career and hasn’t won a major one-day race in over four years.
Marc Hirschi (Current UCI #8): The former prodigy might lack the big-race win pedigree (he has yet to win a single Monument throughout his career), but his recent red-hot form, physical attributes that almost perfectly suit the terrain, and a rare reprieve from working for Pogačar could present the perfect confluence of events for the Swiss rider.
2024 One-Day Wins: 6
Career Wins in One-Day Races with over 4,000m of climbing: 1
Career Monument + WC + Olympic RR wins: 0
Behind these promising metrics, there is the inconvenient fact that Hirshi has not finished ahead of Pogačar in a one-day race where Pogačar has finished the race since 2020 Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
Ben O’Connor (Current UCI #9) — A strong climber but lacks any significant career wins in major one-day races.
Mads Pedersen (Current UCI #10) — A proven big race winner and former World Champion, but he has no career wins in races with more than 3,300m of climbing.
BTP 2024 World Championships Contender Tiers
Tier 1) Tadej Pogačar
Tier 2) Remco Evenepoel, Mathieu van der Poel
Tier 3) Marc Hirschi, Matteo Jorgenson
Tier 4) Primož Roglič, Ben Healy, Maxim van Gils
Tier 5) Stephen Williams, Julian Alaphilippe, Mattias Skjelmose, Toms Skuijns, Michael Matthews
How/When to Watch
When to Watch:
Women’s: Saturday, September 28th: 6:45am-11:15am EST
Mens: Sunday, September 29th, 4am-11:30am EST
How to Watch:
USA: FloBikes