UCI Road World Championships

Who will stand the test of time?

Casey B. Gibson captures the world's top riders as they check out the courses at Australia's road world championships

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Cyclists training for the road worlds are upsetting the Blue Heelers.

The Swiss star wants a fourth time trial title to set an all-time record. And he wants another shot at winning the road race title that eluded him last year.

Despite reluctance from other athletes — and reports of snakes in dorms and collapsing bridges — Mark Cavendish says he'd like another medal from the Commonwealth Games.

The wide world of cycling extends Down Under.

Hot off finishing the Vuelta a España, Christian Vande Velde is looking to end his tumultuous 2010 season on a high note with a strong showing at the world championships in Australia.

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Italy’s Filippo Pozzato took a confidence-boosting victory Sunday after taking the flowers at the Herald Sun World Cycling Classic Ballarat

Three-time world champion Oscar Freire is sounding confident after seeing this year's world’s course first-hand.

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“We are sending three talented teams to Melbourne,” says Jim Miller, USA Cycling vice president of athletics.

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The organizers of the world championships in Australia dropped their support for the New Pathways For Pro Cycling conference, which the dethroned Tour de France winner is scheduled to address.

Tyler Farrar is confident ahead of the world championships after nabbing a straight up stage victory on the last day of the Vuelta

Taylor Phinney is the favorite for a U23 world title, but he's now qualified to race as an elite. The young star is still pondering ...

The world champion in the race against the clock was beaten in the Vuelta time trial and has been complaining of fatigue.

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Team coach Paolo Bettini names 11 men for the team — two will be dropped before worlds.

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Belgian champion Stijn Devolder will give up his spot on the world championship squad.

GP Quebec winner Thomas Voeckler will skip the world championships. The team's coach says without him, France lacks a star.

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The three-time world champ wants a record-setting fourth rainbow jersey.

Tyler Farrar is the likely leader of the nine-man U.S. men team for the world's road race. A cast of young riders, and perhaps Christian Vande Velde, will provide support.

Philippe Gilbert will lead Belgium's road team in Australia, with Stijn Devolder, Greg Van Avermaet and Bjorn Leukemans available.

Filippo Pozzato will captain the team, but Alessandro Petacchi's chances appear "complicated."

Nino Schurter not only beat Julien Absalon at the line in the 2010 World Cup cross-country opener, he topped the Frenchman one more time by winning the World Cup overall title, which Absalon had won the last four years. And what about last year's MTB worlds?

VIDEO: The 20th edition of the UCI Mountain Bike and Trials World Championships at Mont Sainte Anne, Canada, started Wednesday with the team relay. Switzerland wins gold; U.S. finishes in ninth.

Riders like Julien Absalon, Nino Schurter, Willow Koerber, Catharine Pendrel, Greg Minnaar, Gee Atherton, Steve Peat, Sabrina Jonnier, Anneke Beerten and Jared Graves will be vying for rainbow jerseys in their various disciplines at Mont Saint Anne Sept. 1-5.

The Luxembourg cycling federation announced Tuesday that Tour de France runner-up Andy Schleck will not race the world road championships

Haussler had hoped to race for Australia this year, but a lingering knee injury will keep him at home.

HTC-Columbia's Tony Martin wraps up his Eneco Tour by winning the final time trial. Now he's looking toward the world time trial championships in Australia.

Defending champion Cadel Evans will lead the home team at the world road championships next month.

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'I'm absolutely gutted,' the Aussie speedster says after learning he will not be on the team for the worlds in his home country.

Former pro Michael Sayers will direct a strong U.S. men’s national team at the upcoming world championships in Gelong, Australia on October 3.

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• 1. FERRAND PREVOT Pauline (FRA), in 2:31:47
• 2. RATTO Rossella (ITA), at s.t.
• 3. RIVERA Coryn (USA), at s.t
• 4. SOLOVEI Canna (UKR), at s.t.
• 5. ZORZI Susanna (ITA), at 16

The Peanut Butter & Co.-Twenty12 sprinter scores her first worlds medal in Italy.

Lawson Craddock (Hot Tubes) of Houston, Texas, reached the podium of the UCI World Junior Road Championships for the second year in a row, finishing third in the individual time trial in Offida, Italy, on Friday.

Alexander Kolobnev hopes to be speaking Russian from atop the world championship podium some day ... soon

Cervelo's Heinrich Haussler, raised in Australia, decides to give up his German citizenship.

Can world road champ Cadel Evans (BMC) win the Giro d’Italia or Tour de France before it’s too late? He thinks so.

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With the final stop of the 2010 World Cup mountain bike season at Windham Mountain in Upstate New York on Aug. 28 and 29, hitting the UCI MTB World Championships at Mont-Sainte-Anne just a few days later is a no-brainer.

UCI World Road Championships

Bissell's Tom Zirbel confirms that his "A" sample from the USA Cycling Professional Individual Time Trial Championships came back positive for dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA).

Reading Judy Freeman's new Singletrack.com column won't be anywhere near as painful than when she tweaked her hand in Australia as part of the USA Cycling team during the 2009 MTB World Championships. Read Freeman's "Life as a Bike Jockey" to learn how she is getting a grip on things.

World road champion Cadel Evans is named the 2009 Australian Cyclist of the Year for the third time.

Fabian Cancellara is seeking new challenges.

He came close at the Vuelta and at the Giro di Lombardia in 2009, but reigning Olympic champion Samuel Sánchez is aiming higher in 2010.

The time trial is said to be the race of truth: a rider alone, without aid of drafting, sets off in a race against the clock.

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Recently crowned world champion Cadel Evans promises to honor the rainbow jersey with aggressive racing for the remainder of the 2009 season. The 32-year-old Aussie isn’t wasting any time, and will make his debut in the famed rainbow jersey on October 8 in the Coppa Sabatini in Italy. “I will try to honor the rainbow jersey even if my legs are understandably a little tired after a grueling season,” Evans said during a press conference Thursday at the Silence-Lotto team headquarters.

Cadel Evans erased a career of close calls with a daring attack on the final climb to drop a super-star group of riders to win the 2009 world road cycling championships. The Aussie climbed out of the saddle in the closing kilometers of the 259km epic battle to win the most important victory of his career. No one can say Evans doesn’t attack anymore. “This is for all the critics I’ve had this season,” Evans said. “I have seven worlds medals from mountain biking at home, but none of them are gold. People say I never win, but today I won something pretty big.”

Kristin Armstrong’s farewell race ended with an exclamation point as she powered into the winning, four-rider move in Saturday’s elite women’s road race. Tatiana Guderzo (Italy) – a bronze medalist in the road in the Beijing Olympic Summer Games – attacked on the final lap and soloed to victory 19 seconds clear of a three-rider chase group featuring Armstrong in the 124km race under cloudy skies in Mendrisio.

In what’s no surprise, the Italian and Spanish teams are leading the odds to win Sunday’s elite men’s world title. Just as they have for the past decade, Italy and Spain bring deep squads with two or three options to win the season’s most important one-day race on the calendar. Leading Sunday for Italy will be last year’s runner-up Damiano Cunego, with defending champion Alessandro Ballan and Filippo Pozzato waiting in the shadows. Spain comes with Alejandro Valverde, with Olympic gold medalist Samuel Sánchez and three-time world champ Óscar Freire ready to step up.

Women track cyclists could be among the biggest winners at the London Olympics after the UCI said it has the goal of ensuring "gender parity" at the 2012 Games. There are currently, there are 10 track cycling events contested at the Olympics. But while men compete in seven competitions, the women get to contest just three: the sprint, the individual pursuit and the points race. UCI president Pat McQuaid said it is now time to redress the balance so the men and women compete in five events each, acknowledging that the move will mean losing some men's disciplines.

Unlike a grand tour or a classic, or any other major annual bike race, the world road championships is the sport’s only prestigious event that has the whole world looking on — and the organizers have only one chance to do it right. That’s because the Union Cycliste International selects a different country (and city) every year to be the host.

Australian Cadel Evans said he has virtually no chance of winning cycling's coveted rainbow jersey on home soil next year when the world road race championships are held in Geelong. Evans, who finished runner-up in the Tour de France in 2007 and 2008, is among a handful of contenders looking to end Spain and Italy's domination of the competition's road race here on Sunday. And he feels the profile of the 13.8km circuit that the peloton will race 19 times for a total distance of 262.2km suits his climbing talents better than the 2010 course.

Vuelta a España stage-winner Ryder Hesjedal has agreed to stay with Garmin-Slipstream through the 2011 season. “I’ve signed to stay with the team for two more years. The team has been pleased with me and I am very happy with the team,” Hesjedal told VeloNews. “It was pretty simple. We were always on the same page. We were in agreement early in the year to work out an agreement.”

Riding the momentum of Kristin Armstrong’s gold-medal performance at Wednesdays’ world time trial championship, the U.S. women’s road team is hoping to extract a little more hardware out of the UCI world road championship on Saturday.

Maybe Britain’s David Millar was right in saying that he’d “rather race for the win in the road race than second in the time trial" at the world championships this week in Mendrisio, Switzerland. Like Millar, most observers figured that Fabian Cancellara was a shoo-in to win the world time trial title on his home turf. And it wasn’t even a contest. Cancellara earned his third world time trial champion’s jersey, blazing through three laps on a 16.6km circuit near Mendrisio in just 57:55.

Kristin Armstrong put an exclamation point on the final week of her racing career with an emphatic victory in Wednesday’s elite women’s time trial. The Olympic champion whipped old foes and a new generation of faces by nearly one minute to retire with the rainbow jersey. But she’s not done yet. Armstrong will compete in Saturday’s road race, promising an exciting finish to her elite career. VeloNews European correspondent Andrew Hood caught up with Armstrong following her emotional victory:

The days are numbered on her racing career, but Kristin Armstrong was not feeling nostalgic Wednesday in her last major time trial of her career. Racing with the same intensity that delivered her the Olympic gold medal last year in Beijing, Armstrong powered to the rainbow jersey in the elite women’s time trial world championship Wednesday in Mendrisio, Switzerland. The reigning Olympic time trial gold medalist ripped the 26.8km course in 35 minutes, 26 seconds (45.4kph) to claim her second world title in four years and her fourth career worlds competition medal.

Graham Watson was on course and shooting during the under-23 men's time trial world championships in Mendrisio.

None other than Lance Armstrong tips Jack Bobridge as a name to watch for the future. The 20-year-old Aussie railed to the U23 men’s time trial world title Wednesday in Mendrisio to prove that Armstrong’s endorsement is deserved. “You couldn’t ask for much more than that for Lance to mention your name as an up-and-comer,” Bobridge said after dominating the 65-rider field. “It gives me extra motivation. I think I caught his eye a little bit and he’s been following my progress. I met him at the Tour Down Under this year and we had a chance to train together.”

The UCI's world time trial and road championships are slated to begin on Wednesday in Mendrisio, Switzerland, but riders from all over are already plying the roads in preparation.

Photographer Casey Gibson spent Tuesday on the time trial course as riders tested their legs and adjusted their bikes for two days of racing against the clock.

Elite women and U23 men will race Wednesday, with the elite men taking center stage on Thursday.

Road racing begins Saturday with the elite women and U23s, and the elite men’s road race wrapping up events on Sunday.

The

When American Tejay Van Garderen rolls out of the start house at the under-23 world time trial championship on Wednesday in Mendrisio, Switzerland, he’ll do so as a medal favorite. The Colorado native, who spent 2008 and 2009 riding with the Rabobank Continental Professional team and will join Columbia-HTC next year, is fresh off a second-place overall finish at the Tour de l’Avenir (the “tour of the future”), the under-23 stage race run by Tour de France organizers ASO and viewed by many as a precursor to future grand tour contenders.

Fans who have followed the Vuelta a España for the past three weeks must have been wondering why so many riders were dropping out. Of the 198 starters, only 139 finished the race in Madrid on Sunday. Many quit because of injuries suffered in the overly frequent crashes, but the majority never planned to finish. The common refrain was: “I was just using the Vuelta to prepare for the world championships.” And who could blame them?