Filippo Ganna will ride the team pursuit and the time trial at the Glasgow UCI Road World Championships, but the scheduling of the multi-discipline 'Super Worlds' means he cannot also be part of Italy’s road race squad.
The track racing starts on Thursday, August 3, with a combined elite and para cycling schedule running until August 13. The men’s road race is on Sunday, August 6, with the women’s road race a week later on Sunday, August 13. The time trial events are held in between with the men’s time trial on Friday, August 11.
With the Paris 2024 Olympics just a year away, Ganna and fellow pursuiter Jonathan Milan have opted to focus on the track and form the core of the men’s team pursuit squad that will race on August 3, 4 and 5 if they qualify for the finals. Italian men’s national coach Daniele Bennati has been forced to build a road race team without Ganna despite his recent win at the Tour de Wallonie and impressive showing at Milan-San Remo and Paris-Roubaix.
“They talk a lot about multi-discipline riders but then those who ride track and the road are forced to make difficult choices, that doesn’t make sense,” Bennati told La Gazzetta dello Sport.
Alberto Bettiol (EF Education-EasyPost) and Matteo Trentin (Uae Emirates) will lead the Italian men’s road race team, with Andrea Bagioli (Soudal-Quick Step), Daniel Oss (Total Energies), Italian national champion Simone Velasco (Astana), Filippo Baroncini (Lidl-Trek), Lorenzo Rota (Intermarché-Wanty) and Kristian Sbaragli (Alpecin-Deceuninck) expected to complete the eight-rider line-up.
They have gathered in the hills north of Tuscany for some final training and will travel to Scotland on Thursday, swapping the 30°C Tuscany summer for 17°C and a risk of rain on Sunday.
“The road race circuit in Glasgow is really testing with a total of 400 corners during the 270 km race. The riders selected know that they have to give their all,” Bennati said.
“There isn’t a lot of climbing, it’s a Classics rider kind of course for the likes of Mathieu Van der Poel, Mads Pedersen and Wout Van Aert. But there is 3700m of climbing and the circuit will hurt everyone’s legs. If some strong riders get away, it’ll be difficult to chase them down.”
Ganna will soon arrive in Glasgow for some final track training and then stay on for the time trial.
He won the time trial world title in Imola in 2020 and in Bruges in 2021, and he wants a third title. His biggest rivals for the rolling 48.1km course to the west of Sterling include Remco Evenepoel and Wout Van Aert of Belgium, Rohan Dennis (Australia), 2022 world champion Tobias Foss (Norway), Josh Tarling and Geraint Thomas (Great Britain), Stefan Küng and Stefan Bissinger (Switzerland) and the USA’s Brandon McNulty.
“The world time trial title is one of my big goals of the year. I hope to do well,” Ganna recently told La Gazzetta dello Sport.
“I face some major rivals and so I’ll have to be focused, study the course carefully and not make any mistakes.”
None of Ganna’s time trial rivals will also ride the track, but he is focused on anchoring Italy to a second Olympic gold medal in the team pursuit at the Paris 2024 Games. Since riding the Giro d’Italia, Ganna has mixed altitude training in Andorra with specific track work, the Tour de Wallonie and even a final visit to the Milan wind tunnel to tweak some final position and equipment choices.
“Doing the double takes up a lot of physical and mental energy but I really want to do them both,” Ganna said of riding on the track and then the time trial in Glasgow.
“My time trial win at the Tour de Wallonie showed that my numbers are where they should be. We’ve got a few question marks about some technical choices but Dario Cioni [Ganna’s coach at Ineos Grenadiers - ed] is looking at them. They’re important because at the Worlds we’ll have to have the same set-up we’ll use in Paris.”
