World Championship rider ratings: Lotte Kopecky the rider to beat in women's road race in Wollongong

Who will be the final woman to win a set of rainbows at the 2022 World Championships? As Annemiek van Vleuten and her Dutch colleagues showed on Wednesday, it's been something of a challenge just to get to the startline. The 164.3km course is sure to whittle the contenders down to a very select few until just one is left with her arms aloft. As with the time trial, it's an open field, with no team even able to claim primacy.

Although there are no rock-solid favourites, we think there's one rider that stands a better chance than any other. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — LOTTE KOPECKY Ad After a summer spent selflessly slogging away in service to others, it’s Kopecky’s time to shine. We’re back on terrain far more suited to a rider who won Strade Bianche and De Ronde, came second in Paris-Roubaix and wasn’t out of the top 10 of any race through March, April and most of May.

It might be Autumn up north, but don’t forget that it’s spring Down Under. World Championships'Disaster!' – Van Vleuten suffers elbow fracture in freak crash21/09/2022 AT 07:59 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ — ELISA LONGO BORGHINI, DEMI VOLLERING, KASIA NIEWIADOMA, CECILIE UTTRUP LUDWIG, SILVIA PERSICO When was the last time we appraised a World Championship course and decided the Dutch didn’t have a rider who could win on it? They’ve only once been completely absent from the podium in the last decade. Vollering’s presence among the four star contenders is reflective more of collective strength than her own individual powers.

If her team-mates work together to wear out the rest, she can make it to the finish the freshest. If they all imagine they have an equal chance, like at the Olympics, none of them will. The difficulty there is that the Italian team is, arguably, equal if not stronger than that of