It also often happened that a nobody won the world championship, but you can count the champions of cycling of every era on the fingers of one hand – the first names that come to mind are those of Bartali, Magni, Koblet, Anquetil and Indurain – who, among the many jerseys won in their career, do not have the iridated one of world champions. And the world championship that takes place on Sunday in Valkenburg, in Dutch Limburg, promises to be a race for real champions with the asperity of the Cauberg, a wall with peaks of over 12%, to be repeated ten times, just 1,7 km from the goal in the last round. It was needed after last year's flat and disappointing world championship in Copenhagen, with a predictable performance complete with a final sprint, ennobled only by the victory of the great favorite on the eve, the British Mark Cavendish, one of the strongest sprinters of all time.
This year on such a nervous course, which follows the altimetry of the Amstel Gold Race, it is difficult to name a super favourite. But one gets the feeling that the iris is playing everything and not escaping that small circle of riders who belong to today's elite. A track that gives hope for a spectacular race, an opportunity for the world championship after dull editions to rediscover the taste for the enterprise which is the essence of cycling. Unlike the Danish edition, there is no shortage of names. Spain alone presents three candidates for the world championship such as Alberto Contador (triumphant in the Vuelta but disappointing in the world time trial won by the German Toni Martin), Alejandro Valverde, who seems to have returned to his former glory, and Joaquin Purito Rodriguez, who always lacks something to win a great stage race but who on a route like the one in Valkenburg can repeat his explosive sprint that brought him this year to triumph on the Mur d'Huy at the Freccia Vallona.
It is interesting to observe how the bookmakers, for Sunday's match of the Spaniards, upsetting the hierarchies, bet on Valverde (at 9) and Rodriguez (at 12) more than on Contador (given only at 40). A share that of the Iberian champion, who returned to competition after the well-known disqualification, which is even double that of Oscar Freire, the used old man who never betrays, the three-time world champion on whom Spain can always count, above all in the event that the three big names – who crushed Chris Froome's ambitions at the recent Vuelta – wage war as happened to Bartali and Coppi back in 1948, precisely in Valkenburg.
However, the first favorite of the bookmakers is a Belgian: not so much Tom Boonen as Philippe Gilbert (given at 3,75 in the Better odds). After a lackluster season, the Belgian appeared regenerated in the last Vuelta; absent Fabian Cancellara, he is undoubtedly the most accredited finisseur, capable of irresistible progressions in the final part of the race. The Slovak Peter Sagan also has the same characteristics, who after a dazzling Tour, took a few weeks off and disappeared from the news. They say he got fat. But the young talent is a scary customer for everyone.
Italy lands in Holland with one name above all: that of Vicenzo Nibali. The Sicilian knows well the path that suits his characteristics as an indomitable climber and attacker. The bookmakers put him at 17, a respectable quotation which places him, even if not in the pole position of the favourites, among the big names to keep an eye on like Tom Boonen (who woke up this September by winning the Paris-Brussels). , Gerrans (on whom Australia is relying after Cadel Evans' withdrawal) and the Norwegian Boasson-Hagen. After having dominated the cycling season for a long time with the apogee reached in the Tour de France, he is surprised that the British squadron shows up in Holland completely overlooked in the forecasts. Bradley Wiggins, after winning all the stage races in which he has participated, seems to have pulled the oars in the boat, perhaps fearing a bad impression in the presence of a newfound Contador. Yet sooner or later Wiggo will have to contend with King Albert in a great stage race: it will be the best test to understand the extent of a rider who has won more than convinced. Chris Froome also came out of the Vuelta toned down. It's the fault, he says, of a season in which he ran too much. The fact is that in Valkenburg he presents himself rather resigned. Will it be true? Just wait for Sunday. As for Cavendish, the Cauberg is certainly not for him. And the bookmakers didn't even consider it.
It is the fifth time that the world championship returns to Valkenburg, fourteen years after the last one which saw the triumph of the Swiss Oscar Camenzind. His attack, which began eight kilometers from the finish, on a day characterized by rain and cold, was decisive: at the finish line he preceded the pair formed by Peter Van Petegem and Michele Bartoli by about twenty seconds. The latter is the only Italian to have reached the podium in the four previous editions of the world championship race in Valkenburg. Yet in those parts champions of the caliber of Bartali and Coppi came as favorites: but in 1938, the year of the first triumph of the unforgettable Gino on the Tour, the Belgian Kint prevailed; ten years later in 1948 Bartali always came back fresh with his second yellow jersey conquered on the roads of France but the obsessive rivalry with Coppi paralyzed the two big Italians who marked each other until they disappeared from the race won by the Belgian Schotte.
For Italy, which then lived more on bikes than on football, it was a national scandal. The fourth time in Valkenburg saw the victory of the Dutchman Jan Raas, a formidable sprinter but denied on climbs, thanks only to generous pushes by the home fans on the breathtaking walls of the route. Our Battaglin also paid the price. It was 1979: 33 years later, Nibali has all it takes to debunk the legend of a Valkenburg that is bad luck for Italian cycling. At his side he will have the latest product of a successful dynasty such as that of the Moser: he is Aldo's nephew, Moreno, born in 1990, a young promise, teammate in Liquigas of Nibali himself (moreover about to move to Astana ).
