Road World Championships 2022 - Rider ratings: Ellen Van Dijk and Marlen Reusser headline women’s time trial

Who will be the women's world time trial champion 2022? The Road World Championships begin on Sunday in Wollongong, New South Wales, with the race against the clock. It's the first time the competition has been held outside of Europe in five years, and the first time we've gone Down Under since Geelong hosted in 2010. Ad The riders will face a far-from-flat 34.2km, two-lap city-circuit.

For the first time both men and women will ride the exact same distance, over the exact same course. Who will prevail in the battle of the bands? We've picked out the riders to watch. World ChampionshipsRoad World Championships: How to watch, full schedule and timesAN HOUR AGO ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — ELLEN VAN DIJK, MARLEN REUSSER, ANNEMIEK VAN VLEUTEN You may be wondering why the winner of the Tour de France Femmes, Giro Donne and Madrid Challenge isn’t a nailed-on, standalone favourite.

The simple answer is those races gave her a grand total of 4.7km of riding against the clock and in that sole Giro Donne prologue, Annemiek van Vleuten finished a — for her — relatively lowly fifth place. The Olympic champion sensibly tailored her training this season towards her multi-stage race goals, which means her body is less conditioned than usual to this sort of test. Of course you cannot count her out, or even down, but this one is far from a foregone conclusion.

Her Dutch team-mate, Ellen van Dijk is at least an equal and, if we were forced to split them, would probably just edge it. Van Dijk goes into the race not just as reigning champion, but with pretty solid form, having claimed a silver medal in the European Championships in Munich a month ago. The only rider to beat her has to be up there with them, and the only athlete capable of penetrating the orange