I’m of course talking about Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel and Switzerland’s Marlen Reusser. Evenepoel is the three-time defending champion and Reusser was last year’s winner. But that doesn’t mean they’re going to win.
Evenepoel odds-on to win again
Still, it would be an enormous upset if Evenepoel doesn’t. He has won all three of the time trials he has competed in this year, winning the most recent one, in the Tour de France, by 28 seconds over Tadej Pogačar, who is no slouch in the discipline.
Everyone else in the Tour ITT was at least 1:04 slower than Remco. That’s dominance. If anyone believed, as I did, that his becoming a better climber would somehow compromise his ITT skills because he lost weight, they were wrong.
Some of the riders he beat in the Tour are riding on Sunday, such as Mexico’s 23-year-old superstar Isaac del Toro, 19-year-old budding superstar Paul Seixas of France and Italy’s Filippo Ganna. Ganna’s performance in the Tour ITT – he finished 11th, more than 2 minutes behind Evenepoel – was due to tired legs from having raced the Giro d’Italia and to the course, which didn’t suit him because of a tough climb on its route.
But if anyone can beat Evenepoel, it’s Ganna. He is fresh now and the 39.2km course in Montreal is flat until the final 400 meters. That bump in the road may sabotage his chances because it has an average gradient of 6.1%, which means that Ganna will have to be ahead of Evenepoel’s time when he gets there. That’s a big ask – but the 30-year-old Italian is very fast and very strong.
Other favorites include del Toro, who is in terrific form, and Seixas, who is getting better and better and doesn’t really have to win this race yet – which means he has no pressure on him except what he creates himself.
Great Britain’s Ethan Hayter and Callum Thornley will also be in the hunt, as will Daan Hoole of the Netherlands, France’s Bruno Armirail and the two Swiss Stefans, Küng (who won the Vuelta ITT recently) and Bissegger (who hasn’t won anything recently but seems to have used recent races to spring a surprise). But all these riders, except Ganna, will be riding for third place.
Reusser favored, but Vollering looms
As for Reusser, one world championship does not mean domination, and her victory in the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift (TdFFaZ) time trial was close, just 4 seconds over Lieke Nooijen and 18 seconds over TdFFaZ winner Demi Vollering, both of the Netherlands. They are both riding in the world championships as well and I think they both have a chance – though Nooijen is coming back to racing after crashing out of the Tour of Britain with a broken collarbone.
But Vollering is in the form of her life and wants to win everything. And she nearly has. She has won 14 races this year, including the Giro and the TdFFaZ. If Reusser falters just a little, the female cannibal may be the one to take advantage – especially with that short, 6.1% kicker at the end (the women are riding the same course as the men this year).
Fourth in that TdFFaZ time trial was Great Britain’s Zoe Bäckstedt. She’s only 21 and, like Seixas, has lots of room for improvement. She’s not quite up to Vollering and Reusser yet, but she definitely has the potential to spring a surprise.
In last year’s world championship ITT, Reusser beat Vollering by more than a minute, but this year’s Demi is trying to prove that she’s the best in the world – and one of the best ever. The way she’s riding this year, she just may be. There’s no better way to prove it than by winning the world championship double, the road race and the ITT in the same year.
Only two women have accomplished that feat, Jeannie Longo of France, in 1995, and Vollering’s Dutch compatriot Anna van der Breggen, in 2020. I’m sure Evenepoel is also thinking about the road race–ITT double. If he succeeds, he’ll be the first man to do it. That alone should give him wings.