Taking on the Worlds
When Flanders was named host region of this year’s UCI World Road Championships it wasn’t hard to imagine what might happen. As soon as UCI president David Lappartient announced ‘2021 – Flanders’ it all came into sharp focus: fans lining narrow cobbled climbs; a sea of yellow flags sporting the black lion of Flanders; mountains of frites; a route featuring famous towns such as Oudenaarde, Geraardsbergen, Kortrijk and Ghent, each hosting their own festivals of Flanders cycling.
That’s not quite what will unfold from 19th to 26th September. Lappartient was speaking in Innsbruck, scene of the 2018 Worlds, more than a year before any of us had heard the word ‘Covid’. Yet the pandemic is just one reason for this year’s event not exactly corresponding to most people’s imagined versions of a Flanders World Championships.
The road races will be unfamiliar and more unpredictable than if they had closely resembled the Ronde van Vlaanderen
Not Flanders as you know it
The western flank of the region, crisscrossed by the Tour of Flanders and other Flanders Classics in spring, hardly features at all in either the time-trials or road races. Thus, anyone who envisaged this year’s Worlds as
