Cycling World Championships: women’s road race – live! – The Guardian

Less than a month ago Lizzie Deignan was looking very good for a second tilt at the World Championships. A season spent dominating the UCI Women’s Tour alongside side Boels–Dolmans teammate Anna van der Briggen had culminated in victory Grand Prix de Plouay before a near-rupturing of the appendix took the 2015 rainbow jersey winner off the bike and threw her participation into doubt.

She’s in Bergen but whether Deignan now has the legs to compete remains to be seen. The course remains such a mystery as to what kind of race it will produce and whether Deignan can challenge depends partly on what unfolds around her.

She told the Guardian’s William Fotheringham pre-race: “If I have good legs it’s good for me, it’s an opportunistic course, there are places to attack everywhere. It will be wide open.”

Deignan’s colleague Van der Breggen leads an outrageously strong Dutch squad look the team to beat. With Marianne Vos, Annemiek van Vlueten and Ellen van Dijk all riding in support they have almost every tactical eventuality covered. However, they will be a marked team. As the British men found out at the 2012 Olympics, when everyone is so focused on stopping you it can be disastrous, although mercifully Alexander Vinokourov is both retired and the wrong sex to win this race.

Of the other contenders who could take advantage Italy’s Elisa Longo Borghini and Belgium’s Jolien D’Hoore are ones to watch.

The race has started in Bergen and the peloton have completed the first of the 19.1km laps of the circuit. Sweden’s Sara Penton is around 40 seconds off the front of the peloton but there are still 127km remaining. So let’s get at it.