World Cycling Championships 2017 Bergen, Norway: Favourites road race – women

The road race for women at the Worlds in Bergen is played out on a exhausting course of 152.8 kilometres. The route amounts to an altitude gain of 2,248 metres, while the finale is a technical descent of 2.4 kilometer and then 8.2 kilometres on the flat. Who are the favourites to win the rainbow jersey?

It's highly unlikely that Amalie Dideriksen is going to succeed herself. Last year, she won the rainbow jersey on the flat course of Qatar, while the route of 2017 road-race is much more challenging. In Bergen the women race a 19.1 kilometres circuit, in which they face 261 vertical metres. As the route takes in eight laps the total altitude gain is 2,088 metres.

Salmon Hill is the toughest task in each lap. The hill comes with a 1.5 kilometre slope at 6.4%, yet this is not the only climb in the route. Just before hitting Salmon Hill the women tackle two climbs of approximately 1 kilometre and average gradients of around 5%.

The race ends with the combo Salmon Hill - 2.4 kilometres drop - 8.2 kilometres to the line.

Favourites World Championships Road race women

*** Anna van der Breggen, Annemiek van Vleuten, Elisa Longo Borghini
** Elizabeth Deignan-Armitstead, Megan Gaurnier, Katarzyna Niewiadoma
* Marianne Vos, Shara Gillow, Ashleigh Moolman, Lauren Stephens, Amanda Spratt