Van der Poel will be in the Gravel World Championship 2022

The Italian region of Veneto will host the first Gravel World Championships on 8 and 9 October. Over a 190 km course for the men, the first rainbow jerseys of this increasingly popular sport will be contested.

Favourites to win the first Gravel World Championship

After the various rounds of the Gravel World Cup, the places available for this first Gravel World Championships have been allocated to those who managed to qualify in the top positions in their respective categories in some of the races held. In addition, there are the wildcards reserved by the UCI and the national federations for Elite category riders.

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Among the participants who have confirmed their presence at the start in Vicenza, three-time Road World Champion Peter Sagan will try to add another rainbow jersey to his collection. 

However, he will not have an easy task after several Belgian media announced the presence of Mathieu Van der Poel, in what will be his comeback after the incident he suffered during the Road World Championship in Australia and his subsequent abandonment of the race.

Van der Poel will try to end the season on a positive note at the Gravel World Championships after a year in which, except for the victory at the Tour of Flanders, things have not gone as planned.

There will also be some well-known road professionals such as Greg Van Avermaet, Gianni Vermeersch, Zdenek Stybar and Daniel Oss on the starting grid.

The reigning XCO and Short Track World Champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, who, given her experience in cyclo-cross and road racing, is undoubtedly one of the main favourites for victory despite the presence of gravel specialists, will also be there with the full intention of adding what is probably the only rainbow missing from her collection.

As far as the Spanish participation is concerned, it is worth mentioning the presence of Movistar Team rider Carlos Verona, who went to the Ranxo a few weeks ago, an event that closed the Gravel World Cup, with the sole intention of trying out this speciality as a way of bringing the season to a gradual end.

The Movistar rider surprised everyone with a resounding victory in this race, which earned him a passport to compete in the World Championship, a challenge that the rider from Madrid has not been afraid of, extending his season for a few weeks. He also took part in the Pirinexus, a race of more than 300 kilometres that runs through the Catalan Pyrenees and the Empordà region, finishing in 12th position, and in the Grinduro Germany, where he finished in 26th place.

The Gravel World Championship takes place between the Italian cities of Vicenza and Cittadella

At the beginning of the current season, the UCI announced the creation of a Gravel World Cup and the holding of the first Gravel World Championships, choosing the Italian region of Veneto, in the North-East of Italy, for the latter event.

These events corroborate the rise of gravel at world level, which has gone from being a modality purely centred on leisure and adventure to also finding its competitive side with the increase in the number of races that are held, not only in the United States, where gravel originated, but all over the world.

October 8 and 9 will be the date chosen by the UCI for the first Gravel World Championships and this will be the route.

The Route

The race will be held in the cities of Vicenza, Padova and Cittadella, between which former professional road cyclists Angelo Furlan and Marco Menin, responsible for the organisation of this Gravel World Championship, have designed a route that includes stretches of asphalt, the typical Italian white roads that have made the Strade Bianche famous and even some sections of cobblestones as it passes through the cities where the race takes place.

In any case, it is a practically flat route with only two uphills, with ramps of up to 10%, which are concentrated in the first 20 kilometres of the race, an initial section that will take the cyclists from the start in Vicenza towards the southwest towards the city of Padova and, after going around it, they will head north towards Cittadella where the race will enter, in the style of what happens in the Road World Championships, in a final circuit of 26.8 kilometres.

In a video shared by the organisers themselves, they have given us a glimpse of what the route of the race will be like, eminently flat as the profile suggests and on tracks and roads in good condition, which suggests a very fast race in which predicting a winner will be little more than mission impossible.

 

 

 

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Una publicación compartida de UCI Gravel World Series (@ucigravelworldseries)

Timetable and schedule of the Gravel World Championship 2022

On Saturday 8th at 12:00 the Elite women's race will take place, as well as the rest of the women's age categories, which will do a single lap of the final loop for a total of 140 kilometres and 700 metres of elevation gain. Also, on the same route, the male cyclists in the Master50a, Master50b and Master60 categories will take part in the race, which will start together with the women's age groups after the Elite competitors have started.

In the Elite men's category, which will be held on Sunday 9 at 11:00, a couple of laps will be added to the Cittadella circuit, leaving a total distance of 190 kilometres and 800 metres of accumulated altitude gain. After the start of the Elite, as on the previous day with the women, the rest of the men's age categories will start one after the other, which will follow the same route as the Elite cyclists but with one less lap of the final circuit of Cittadella for a total of 165 km.