The elite road races are the culmination of both the week of racing at the UCI Road World Championships and the 2025 season. Yes, there are a few races still to take place, most notably Il Lombardia for the men, but this weekend’s races are what many riders will have focused the second half of their seasons on. For many, it is their last serious competitive outing of the year.
So who are the contenders for the famous rainbow bands? Who will get to wear the distinctive white jersey with the five coloured bands across their chest throughout 2026, and grapple with the decision whether or not to pair it with white shorts? We run through the route and contenders for both races.
Women’s Elite Road Race route details
Women’s road race, key facts
Where: Kigali, Rwanda
When: Saturday, September 24
Distance: 164.6km
Elevation: 3,350m
Circuits: 11
Circuit length: 14.96km
Starters: 106
Nations: 43
Defending champion: Lotte Kopecky (not riding)
Official Startlist: On Tissot Timing website
The route for the elite women’s race is a city centre-based course comprising of 11 laps of a 14.96km circuit, resulting in a 164.6km total length. The women will climb 3,350m of elevation throughout the race, all of which sits at between 1,400m and 1,500m above sea level.
These numbers are likely to result in an attritional race that will favour the climbers. Most significantly, the finish line comes just over the top of the cobbled climb of the Côte de Kimihurura, which you will have seen if you’ve been watching the time trials.
Although not the only climb on the circuit, and only 1.3km long at just 6.3%, the cobbles are severe enough to make this the decisive point in the route. Tackled 11 times, and topping out just a few metres before the finish line, this short stretch of road will determine tactics throughout.
Positioning coming into the cobbles will be key: there’s a fast run-in on a wide road where riders will struggle to move up, then a tight left turn scrubbing off everyone’s speed. Splits will then occur in the bunch almost every time up it. Ability wise, the field is one of the most diverse we’ve ever seen with riders like Demi Vollering and Pauline Ferrand-Prevot and others from smaller nations who won’t have competed in the WorldTour before.
Anyone with a realistic hope of winning will have to hold their position at the front of the bunch, and have the power to ride the cobbles in the saddle, along the climbing ability to deal with the accumulative fatigue that will come from the persistent climbing.
Women’s Elite World Championship road race contenders
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Demi Vollering
Netherlands | 28
UCI rank: 22025
wins: 9
CW Rating 5/5
Throughout the first half of the year, Demi Vollering was the rider to beat, racking up wins at stage race after stage race while also performing in the one-day classics. A win at Strade Bianche Donne (a solid measure of ability on Kigali’s parcours) and was in the top four at Omloop Nieuwsblad, Milan-San Remo, Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège. She is therefore the standout favourite for the race. But this is no foregone conlusion. Vollering hasn’t won a race since early June and the Volta a Catalunya Femenina. Newly minted TT world champ Marlen Reusser narrowly beat her at the Tour de Suisse, then Pauline Ferrand Prevot comprehensively beat her at the Tour de France Femmes, Vollering’s main aim of the season. Vollering has all the attributes to win in Rwanda, if she doesn’t, the world champs risk becoming something of a bogey race for her – she is yet to win a senior world title. If ever there was a course to suit her, it’s this one.
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot
France | 33
UCI rank: 12
2025 wins: 4
CW Rating 5/5
Don’t let the low win count or lowly UCI ranking fool you; the Frenchwoman’s return to road racing in 2025 has been nothing short of spectacular. With years of experience behind her, and several years racing mountain bikes in which a rider spends more time training and focusing on fewer races, Ferrand Prevot came back to the road scene with very specific targets. And nailed them. An early win at Paris-Roubaix was a good start although as the race can be something of a lottery, was not taken as a sign of things to come. But then, at the Tour de France Femmes she was unstoppable. Biding her time until the race hit the mountains and making her move in a pre planned attack that worked wonders. The 2014 road world champion knows how to focus, and knows how to win world titles – she has 15 of them under her belt.
Kim Le Court-Pinaar
Mauritius | 29
UCI rank: 13
2025 wins: 5
CW Rating ⅘
2025 has been a breakthrough year for the Mauritian rider with a win and spell in the yellow jersey at the Tour de France Femmes and victory at Liège-Bastogne-Liège. Out of the nine one-day races she’s completed this year, she has only finished outside the top ten in two of them. While not a pure climber, her results at the Ardennes classics prove she’s a contender.
Anna Van der Breggan
Netherlands | 35
UCI rank 17
2025 wins: 1
CW Rating 3/5
The two time winner of this title has had a solid return to the peloton this year. After retiring at the end of the 2021 season, van der Breggen spent three years working as a Directeur Sportif for SD Worx Protime. She’s been solid all year but not quite up to the level of Vollering, Ferrand-Prevot or Lotte Kopecky. She is however an essential part of the always strong Dutch team, that has several options. For them, team cohesion will be as influential as the cobbles of the Côte de Kimihurura
(Image credit: Tom Davidson)
Kasia Niewiadoma
Poland | 30
UCI rank: 15
2025 wins: 1
CW Rating 3/5
Just one win this year at her national championships for the 2024 Tour de France Femmes winner, but if you’re looking for a consistent rider, with experience, look no further. In both individual stages at stage races and one-day events, Niewiadoma is rarely out of the top ten, and only occasionally out of the top 20. Expect to see her near the front all day, riding off the back of the stronger teams.
Elisa Longo Borghini
Italy | 33
UCI rank: 3
2025 wins: 7
CW Rating 3/5
The winner of this year’s Giro d’Italia women will lead the Italian team that lacks strength in depth. Not a natural climb, Longo Borghini undoubtedly has the power to ride the cobbles of the Côte de Kimihurura and the experience to hold an optimal position in the bunch throughout. Pulling out of the Tour de France Femmes after two stages left her without much racing this summer, but a one-day win in France at the end of August suggests she is building back up for the end of the season.
Others to watch
Winning the time trial in decisive fashion means Marlen Reusser (Switzerland) will be a marked woman. Not known for her climbing, and with few one-day results in the last two seasons, Reusser has however triumphed at the Tour de Suisse Women and finished second at the Giro d’Italia women, two races not known for their flat profiles. If Pauline Ferrand-Prevot missfires, France’s leadership will likely switch to Cédrine Kerbaol, a young climber whose results suggest she’s on a path to bigger things. Part of the silver medal winning team in the Mixed Relay Team Time Trial, she’s clearly in good form. Gernany’s best bet comes in the shape of Liane Lippert. Solid if not spectacular in one-day races, she’s had two solid results in races earlier this month.
Men’s Elite Road Race route details
Men’s road race, key facts
Where: Kigali, Rwanda
When: Sunday, September 25
Distance: 267.5km
Elevation: 5,475m
Circuits: 9 x Local circuit, 1 x Extended, 6 x Local circuit
Circuit length: 14.96km (Local circuit), 42.5km (Extended circuit)
Starters: 165
Nations: 57
Defending champion: Tadej Pogačar (Slovenia)
Official Startlist: On Tissot Timing website
The men’s road race is the only event at the Worlds to venture out of the centre of Kigali. The route takes the peloton west out through the city centre out to Kamuhanda, but in a break from the normal format, only after they’ve completed nine circuits of the route the other races have used. The ‘Extension circuit’ as it’s referred to is 42.5km long and takes the riders to the top of Mont Kigali, a 5.9km climb that takes the riders to the highest point on the route. From there it’s mainly downhill back to the circuit and five more laps which includes five more ascents of the cobbled Côte de Kimihurura.
Expect a slow start from the peloton, as they cruise through the first two to three hours of the likely six-hour-plus race while a break establishes a lead. The Worlds is often a wearing down process due to it’s length and the first few hours serve to build the fatigue in the riders that then impacts their performance in the final stages. The hilly parcours in Kigali that has the biggest elevation gain of any Worlds road race will likely see the peloton slowly whittled down before it explodes in the final hour.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Men’s Elite World Championship road race contenders
Tadej Pogačar
Slovenia | 26
UCI rank: 1
2025 wins: 15
CW rating 5 / 5
The defending champion will start as favourite, as he does for any race he starts. This year the Slovenian has been as close to unbeatable as any rider has ever been with seemingly comfortable victories at the Tour de France, Tour of Flanders, Liege-Bastogne-Liege and Strade Bianche. But then a few days ago Remco Evenepoel caught him for two-and-a-half minutes in the TT and suddenly there was a glimmer of hope for the rest of the peloton. Was it a rare off day for Pogačar, or has he struggled to regain his form after such an impressive opening six months of the year. Considering his ride at the GP Cycliste Montréal two weeks ago, we’ll go with ‘an off day.’
Remco Evenepoel
Belgium | 25
UCI rank:
2025 wins:
CW rating 4 / 5
His performance in the time trial elevated Evenepoel to favourite status as he became the first rider to catch and pass Pogačar. Suddenly pulling out of the Tour de France with a lack of form was a distance memory, and thoughts turn to his solo win at the Wollongong worlds in Australia, 2022. If Evenepoel wants to win, he’ll need to go it alone as few can match his pace setting and aero tuck in a one-on-one chase.
Ben Healy
Ireland | 25
UCI rank: 16
2025 wins: 2
CW rating 3 / 5
If ever there was a race that suits the Irishman’s style of road racing, it’s the World Championships. Run with smaller teams there is less control in the bunch, meaning riders have to race more on instinct; sniffing out the right move, at the right time, and then riding to their strengths. Although diminutive, Healy can’t climb with the likes of Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard, but he excels on tougher routes as he knows how to pace his efforts. His results this year have shown he can mix it with the best in the world when he’s on form.
Tom Pidcock
Great Britain | 26
UCI rank: 8
2025 wins: 5
CW rating: 3 / 5
Pidcock’s fresh start with a new pro team and focus on road racing paid dividends at the Vuelta a España where he finished third, his best performance in a Grand Tour. There was no stage win, but neither did he scrape in at the last minute. He held his podium position through the final week and some of the races toughest stages, suggesting he got to Madrid (or thereabouts as the stage was cancelled) in good form. The key for Pidcock, and all the riders coming out of the Vuelta, is how they balance the fatigue while maintaining form alongside the international travel out to Africa.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Juan Ayuso
Spain | 23
UCI rank: 17
2025 wins: 7
CW rating: 4 / 5
Three stage wins, two of which came from long breaks, means Ayuso is certain to be Spain’s leader in Rwanda. Only 23, Ayuso has been touted as the heir to Pogačar’s throne for some time, but the Spaniard obviously doesn’t want to wait as he recently got himself out of his contract with UAE Team Emirates to join Lidl-Trek for the next four seasons. Ayuso has lived up to the hype this year, with one-day wins back in early March, victory at Tirreno-Adriatico and a solid performance through the first 15 stages of the Giro d’Italia before quitting after getting stung by a bee.
Others to watch
The only rider to beat Tadej Pogačar when going mano-a-mano at the finish line, Denmark’s Mattias Skjelmose will not be allowed to go under the radar in Rwanda. A natural climber, he is well suited to the parcours and has posted solid results in all his races post Tour de France. And that photo-finish win at Amstel ahead of Pog, also saw him take Evenepoel’s scalp. Without Mathieu van der Poel to coalesce around, the Netherlands will likely pin their hopes on double TdF stage winning Thymen Arensmen. He might not be a prolific winner, but he can climb well and manage his efforts – essential over the rolling terrain in Kigali. Julian Alaphilippe has won this title twice, and a win in Canada earlier this month gives a glimmer of hope that he might have one more big win in him, while Britain’s Oscar Onley proved through July that he can climb with the best. Australia has options with the in form Jay Vine and Jai Hindley while the United States will look to Quinn Simmons to get stuck in. Pure climbers lurking in the field included Egan Bernal (Colombia) , Richard Carapaz (Ecuador) and Italy’s Giulio Ciccone.
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