A delegation from the International Cycling Union (UCI) has officially approved the courses for this year’s World road championships in the Limburg region of the Netherlands, the event organiser reports. The races - which will include the junior competitions once again, after they were reintroduced to the elite championships in Copenhagen, Denmark, last year, as well as the first ever running of a team time trial championship for elite pro teams - will be run between September 15th and 22nd.
Marc Chovelon, head of the delegation, and the man responsible for approving all road a time trial courses, described the courses as “complicated, though very interesting.
“Through many innovations this World Championship in Limburg becomes a championship where extra preparations have to be made by the UCI,” he explained. “Our attention goes especially towards the several unique start locations, and the team time trial for commercial teams.
“The 2012 Worlds will become a championship to be remembered for a long time.”
The road race courses are to be ridden on a 16.5km road race circuit around the town of Valkenberg, which is very similar to that used the last time the Worlds was hosted by the town in 1998; it will based on the climbs of the 900 metre long Bemelerberg, with a 5% average gradient, and the 1200 metre long Cauberg, at an average of 5.8%. Unlike the Amstel Gold Race, the World championships will not finish at the top of the Cauberg, but use the same finish as the 2006 Tour de France stage, some 1,700 metres beyond the summit.
The elite men will start in the nearby city of Maastricht - which also currently hosts the start of the Amstel Gold Race - and complete the same hilly 100km loop that the Spring Classic follows, before completing ten laps of the circuit. Elite women will start on the circuit and complete eight laps, while the under-23 men will race ten; the junior men will complete the same distance as the elite women, while the junior women will race four laps.
In addition to Valkenberg and Maastricht, the towns of Heerlen, Sittard-Geleen, Landgraaf and Eijsden-Margraten will play host to the starts of the various individual and team time trials. All events will finish at the same place however, after taking in the final climb of the Cauberg.
“The organisation of the Worlds has accomplished the laying out of a selective route for every course,” said Charly Mottet, silver medallist in the 1986 World championships in Colorado Springs, CO, and now advisor to the UCI. “With such diverse scenery, in combination with the different start locations, this will produce great television images to be broadcast all over the world.
“Every city and village has its own identity” he added. “This is very special.”
Valkenberg has hosted the World championships four times in the past - in 1938, 1948, 1979 and 1998 - while Heerlen was also the host city in 1967.
The 1998 Elite men’s race was taken - on a rainy day, and with an oil spill on the course - by Swiss rider Oscar Camenzind, while the women’s race was won by Lithuanian all-rounder Diana Ziliute. Spain’s Abraham Olano won the men’s time trial, while Dutch legend Leontien Zijlaard-Van Moorsel took the home nation’s only gold in the women’s; a post-cancer Lance Armstrong followed his surprise fourth place Vuelta a España finish with fourth place in both of the elite men’s races.
A certain Ivan Basso took the under-23 road race for Italy, while young Norwegian Thor Hushovd won the time trial. In the junior races, the men’s road race was taken by Ireland’s Mark Scanlon, and a young Swiss named Fabian Cancellara took the time trial. [I wonder what happened to him - ed]. Both junior women’s events were taken by Germany, with Tina Liebig winning the road race, and Trixi Worrack the time trial.