How to Watch the 2022 UCI Road World Championships Road Race

This year’s World Championships head to Australia with a well-known list of contenders set to take the rainbow jersey in this weekend’s elite road races.

This year’s UCI World Road Championships will be held in Wollongong, Australia. The celebrations kicked off on Sunday with the elite individual time trial events (won by Dutch Ellen van Dijk and Norway’s Tobias Foss) and will continue throughout the week with junior and U23 events.

But while we love meeting the sport’s future stars, the best races to watch are this weekend’s elite women’s and men’s road races, where the winner of each event earns the right to compete next calendar year to spend wearing the rainbow jersey as the world’s ruling champion road racer.

Here’s an overview of everything you need to know:

The distance

The elite women and men will run 164.3km and 266.9km respectively, with both events starting in Helensburgh – a small town about 28 miles south of Sydney – followed by a long drive along the coast on Grand Pacific Drive – the Australian version of California’s Pacific Coast Highway – to the city of Wollongong.

After crossing the finish line in Wollongong, both fields will complete one lap of a 34.2km course that will take them up and over Mount Keira (8.7km at 5 percent). This isn’t the toughest climb riders have experienced this season, but it’s a long resistance with a steep mid-climb that hits 15 percent. It could force a selection in the women’s event – especially if the race’s deeper teams are pushing a hard pace.

A long descent brings everyone back to Wollongong where the women will complete 6 laps of a 17.1km ‘town’ course. This smaller course features the shorter but steeper climb to Mount Pleasant (1.1km @ 7%) that was intended to be the strategic focus of the finale. Riders will climb this for the last time just 8km from the finish line, making it the perfect spot for a late attack. The men’s race follows a similar pattern but increases the distance by completing 12 laps of the Wollongong City Circuit.

While we’ve been wrong before, we don’t expect large groups to sprint for victory in either event, as Mount Pleasant provides a perfect launching pad for hard-hitting riders to escape. It could all come down to who is attacking and who is in charge of the pursuit. The Dutch women and Belgian men have the strongest teams in their respective events, and if someone makes a move and they are unable or unwilling to organize a cohesive chase, we could see an angry winner – what at an event is not uncommon where drivers do not race with their usual commercial teams.

how to watch

If you signed up for FloBikes ($150/year or $12.50/month) during the Spring Classics and never canceled your subscription, you’re in luck: it’s the only legal way to stream the race in the US and Canada . Both the men’s and women’s events will be available live and on-demand via FloBikes.com, the FloSports IOS app and the FloSports app for Amazon FireTV, Roku and Apple TV.

With the races taking place in Australia – which is 14 hours from New York City – the timing lends itself to Friday and Saturday night viewing parties late into the night – especially if you live on the west coast. The women’s race begins at 10:25 p.m. EDT and was scheduled to finish around 3:00 a.m. early Saturday morning. The men’s event starts earlier — at 8:15 p.m. EDT — but finishes around the same time on Sunday morning.

We’ll likely watch the start of both races and then head to bed – after turning off our phones to guard against spoilers being broadcast by West Coast friends. Before we check our social media feeds the next morning, we make a pot of coffee and start the FloBikes replay to see the excitement of the delay.

What happened last year

Last year’s events took place in Flanders, with the road races starting in Antwerp and ending with a series of circuits in and around Leuven, a university town in the Flemish province of Brabant. On Saturday, Italy’s Elisa Balsamo edged out Marianne Vos of the Netherlands and Katarzyna Niewiadoma of Poland to win the elite women’s road race. Balsamo’s teammate Elisa Longo Borghini tried to attack on the final climb, but after being caught she led Balsamo out instead.

On Sunday, Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe defended his 2020 title, attacking an elite group of riders that included pre-race favorite Wout van Aert (Belgium) with 20km to go for an impressive solo win to gain. Four riders escaped in pursuit of the Frenchman but finished half a minute behind, with Dutchman Dylan van Baarle passing Denmark’s Michael Valgren to take the silver medal.

Alaphilippe is competing in this year’s race but is unlikely to be in contention for a third consecutive title after a season marred by two serious crashes.

driver to watch

Annemiek van Vleuten (Netherlands) – Van Vleuten, who won the world title in 2019, is once again the top favorite. The soon to be 40-year-old has had a fantastic season, winning the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Giro Rosa, Tour de France Femmes and most recently the Cerazit Challenge. She’s known for long-distance attacks – like the one she launched to ride Femmes in the yellow jersey on stage seven of the Tour de France – so don’t be surprised if she goes on the offensive early to try and outpace the competition to surprise.

Marianne Vos (Netherlands) – We could probably list all of van Vleuten’s teammates as contenders – the Dutch team are just so strong – but we’ll stick to just one: Vos, who has won pretty much every women’s race on the calendar including world titles over the years 2006, 2012 and 2013. Winner of two stages and the green jersey at the Tour de France Femmes – and four stages at the Tour of Scandinavia in August – would have her best chance of winning in the sprint.

Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy) – Longo Borghini is a classics specialist who can win one-day races like the Strade Bianche, the Trofeo Alfredo Binda (twice) and the Tour of Flanders. As the winner of this year’s Paris-Roubaix, she is the best non-Dutch contender.

Katarzyna Niewiadoma (Poland) – If her career hadn’t unfortunately coincided with an era of Dutch dominance, Niewiadoma probably would have won almost every race on the women’s calendar by now. Instead, she often has to settle for podiums and top five finishes – like her bronze medal in last year’s race in Leuven. But she is always a contender and if the Dutch and Italian sides spend too much time marking each other, she could claim victory.

Wout van Aert (Belgium) – Perhaps the sport’s most talented Classics rider, van Aert has so far failed to win the biggest events on his wish list: the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix and World Championships. After winning three stages, the green jersey and the yellow jersey for his team at the Tour de France, the Belgian immediately got back to work with a win and three top five finishes in four races which he attended to prepare for the World Championships. The only blow against him is the fact that he is the overwhelming favorite and nobody will cooperate with him in the final.

Tadej Pogačar (Slovenia) – The two-time Tour de France winner took a break after finishing second at this year’s Tour, but positioned himself as a world favorite by overtaking van Aert to win the recent Grand Prix cycliste de Montréal. Pogačar may be known for his stage racing skills, but he’s one of the world’s best all-around cyclists and has won races like Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Il Lombardia and Strade Bianche to prove it. And without Primož Roglič in this year’s Slovenia squad, Pog has the full support of his teammates.

Mathieu van der Poel (Netherlands) – After the abandonment of the Tour de France, some question marks surfaced over the Dutch superstar’s fitness. But the two-time Tour of Flanders winner has won the last three races he has competed in and seems ready to challenge for the rainbow jersey at a circuit that is perfect for him.

Remco Evenepoel (Belgium) – Having won the Tour of Spain two weeks ago, we wouldn’t have been surprised if Evenepoel had ended a season. But the 22-year-old went straight to Australia and won the bronze medal in the individual time trial. He’s driving for van Aert on paper but we suspect he’ll be given more of a free role and could take advantage if teams let him escape.