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Although Chloé Dygert (600) and Rohan Dennis (1000) start as favorites to revalidate the world time trial champions' jerseys obtained in 2019, the same is not the case with the world championships road race. In the women's event, the current champion Annemiek van Vleuten (1200) will be the great absentee, after her fall and injury in the women's Giro. In the men's race, Mads Pedersen (400) will also not be in Imola to try to defend the title, as he considered that the route is too hard for him.

In this exceptional 2020, what had to be a World Cup for climbers in the Innsbruck mountains, in Switzerland, has moved to Imola, in Italy, where the route does not have the hard ports expected in the Alps. The circuit, yes, has two heights of less than 3 km, which by repetition end up adding a considerable uphill difference: 3455 meters in the case of women and 4626 for men.

This change in the route opens the list of applicants, since not only climbers will leave with options. Puncheurs and clasics riders are also going to play their options to get the most coveted jersey in world cycling.

Women’s road race

For the women's road event, Anna van der Breggen (1200), Katerina Niewiadoma (1200), Elisa Longo Borghini (1000), Cecile Uttriup Ludwig (800), Marianne Vos (1200), Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (1000) and Elisabeth Deignan (1000) start as top favorites.

Men’s road race

For the men's road event, the list of candidates for victory is expanded. Some teams are going to try to toughen up the race, such as the Colombian team, which has a roaster of pure climbers formed by Rigoberto Uran (600), Sergio Higuita (800), Miguel Angel López (1200), Daniel Felipe Martínez Poveda (600), Nairo Quintana (1000), Harold Tejada (200) and Esteban Chaves (400). Other climbers who are interested in selecting the race can be Michael Woods (600), the brothers Simon Yates (1000) and Adam Yates (1000), Vincenzo Nibali (800), or the Slovenian duo, Tedej Pogačar (1200) and Primož Roglič (1200).

Other riders who start as serious favorites and to whom the broken route is perfectly suited are the Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe (1200), the Kazakh Alexey Lutsenko (800), the Spanish Alejandro Valverde (1200), the Danish Jakob Fuglsang (1000) or the German Maximillian Schachmann (1000).

Finally, the Belgians are going to try to break the race and turn it into a spring classic, and they have a real all-stars for it: Greg Van Avermaet (800), Tiesj Benoot (800), Oliver Naesen (800), Tim Wellens (600) and, standing out above the rest, Wout Van Aert (1000), who is just too good and starts as the main favorite to victory. Slovak Peter Sagan (1200), Australian Michael Matthews (1000) and Polish Michael Kwiatkowski (800) are also interested in this scenario.

Women's time trial

The current champion Chloe Dygert (600) starts as the main favorite to revalidate the title, especially after the loss of Annemiek Van Vleuten (1200). Anna Van der Breggen (1200) will surely be her great rival. Other good crooners are Leah Thomas (600), Lisa Brennauer (1000) or Juliette Labous (600), among others.

Men's Time Trial

Rohan Dennis (1000) is the man to beat in a startlist where everyone is a specialist against the clock. Tom Dumoulin (800), Geraint Thomas (1000), Wout Van Aert (10000), Filippo Ganna (400) or Stefan Küng (600) may be the ones to put the Australian champion in trouble.