World Championship Men’s Road Race: Ranking the Favorites

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Believe it or not, Tadej Pogačar isn’t the only contender for the rainbow jersey Sunday in the world championship men’s road race.

In fact, there’s a deep field of contenders putting lustful eyes on a career-defining gold medal.

Former world champions, beyond-stellar superdomestiques, and a trio of U.S. attackers will be elbowing for space on Pogačar’s wheel Sunday in the hills around Zürich.

The lumpy route for Sunday’s Swiss excursion packs enough vert to satiate the peloton’s feathery climbers. But it’s not so hard it sours the strongest fast finishers, either.

That’s why a wild array of talent could win gold Sunday in the 2024 men’s road race.

Cobble-bashing champion Mathieu van der Poel might have just as much chance as spindly uphiller Michael Woods or audacious attacker Ben Healy.

>> Check here for a full men’s road road preview

There’s no surprise who gets five stars for Sunday’s men’s road race. But how does the rest of the field stack up for the race for the rainbow bands?

World championship men’s road race rankings, per Jimbo:

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: Tadej Pogačar
⭐⭐⭐⭐: Remco Evenepoel
⭐⭐⭐: Mathieu van der Poel, Julian Alaphilippe, Marc Hirschi
⭐⭐: Matteo Jorgenson, Primož Roglič, Biniam Girmay
⭐: Stevie Williams, Tom Pidcock, Maxim Van Gils, Michael Matthews, Pello Bilbao, Mads Pedersen, Brandon McNulty, Neilson Powless, Ben Healy, Michael Woods

Tadej Pogačar (Slovenia): ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

• 2024 highlights:
  • Wins: Giro d’Italia, Tour de France, Volta Catalunya, Strade Bianche, Liège-Bastogne Liège, GP Montréal, 12 x grand tour stages, 4 x stage-race stages
  • Milan-San Remo – 3rd
• Worlds best: 3rd (2023)

Just read the palmarès … what more can be said?

Tadej Pogačar is the absolute uber-favorite for road worlds. If we could give him six stars, we would.

He’s cranked 22 wins in 54 days in a season-long Pog-cession that started on day 1 at Strade Bianche and lasted all the way through to his last race in Montréal.

The Liège-Bastogne-Liège-style course in Zürich is made for Doyenne champion Pogačar. He’s likely been daydreaming all week of which climb he might use for a race-crushing attack.

Pogačar has got Primož Roglič as a beyond-super domestique and the unrelenting confidence of the peloton’s modern Merckx.

Slovenia’s closest rival Remco Evenepoel may have lost some watts after he demolished last weekend’s time trial and Team Belgium may be weakened by the absence of Wout van Aert.

The race seems Pogi‘s to lose.

A career-first rainbow jersey would be yet another pinnacle in what has been one of the most successful pro cycling seasons of the century.

Pogačar already made history by becoming the first to win both the Giro and Tour in one season since Marco Pantani. He could write another line in Zürich with a world title that would make him the first man to win the Triple Crown in 37 years.

Remco Evenepoel (Belgium): ⭐⭐⭐⭐

• 2024 highlights:
  • Wins: Olympic road race, Olympic TT, World championship TT, Volta ao Algarve, 1 x TDF stage
  • Tour de France – 3rd , Paris-Nice – 2nd
• Worlds road race best: 1st (2022)

You gotta feel for Remco.

His double Olympic season would be hailed one of the greatest if it wasn’t for pesky Tadej Pogačar stealing all the plaudits with his rout of seemingly every race he started.

Remco Evenepoel would flip that script Sunday if he reaps another road race world title. It would complete a unique “double double” of gold medals at both Olympic and worlds time trial and road races.

The problem for Evenepoel?

He’ll have to beat Pogačar at his own game in order to earn his second road title in three years.

The Belgian’s golden bullet is a Pogi-esque long-range attack. That’s how Pogačar and Evenepoel won the past three editions of Liège. In Remco’s case, it’s his ultimate superpower.

Unlike so many other top favorites – Pogačar, MVDP, Julian Alaphilippe et al – Evenepoel can’t rely on ruling a small-bunch sprint.

He needs to find a way to blow everybody off his wheel in the final hills and hit the flats along Lake Zurich alone.

Wout van Aert’s injury-enforced absence is both a blessing and a curse for Team Belgium. They’ve lost a would-be winner and tactical pawn, but also gained the unity of a singular goal.

Heavy hitters like Tiesj Benoot, Jasper Stuyven, and Victor Campenaerts will be committed to delivering Evenepoel toward his solo raid.

Evenepoel has three gold medals in his 2024 trophy cabinet and admitted he’s got little to lose in Sunday’s road race.

Expect Belgium’s golden son to animate.

Marc Hirschi (Switzerland): ⭐⭐⭐

• 2024 highlights:
  • Wins: Czech Tour, Clásica San Sebastián, GP Plouay, GP Industria & Artigianato, GP Coppa Sabatini, Memorial Marco Pantani
  • Amstel Gold Race – 2nd, Milan-Torino – 3rd
• Worlds best: 3rd (2020)

Marc Hirschi isn’t used to hanging out in the high company of his fellow world championship favorites. But Switzerland’s home hope has sure earned his top-rated status.

He followed two marquee one-day wins at the WorldTour-rated Clásica San Sebastián and GP Plouay earlier this summer with an all-Italian triplo this month.

It was an undefeated run of five that returned Hirschi to the pedestal of his pandemic-era breakout.

So is Hirschi true 2024 world champion pedigree?

The 26-year-old has made a recent habit of beating lower-rated riders in second-tier races. It’s hard to imagine this “scourge of the lower leagues” hanging with his UAE Emirates teammate Pogi if the Slovenian opens the turbos early.

Likewise, Remco Evenepoel might gobble Hirschi up and spit him out half-chewed if the Belgian cracks open a trademark long-range assault.

Team Switzerland will have to rely on home stoke and their best legs to swat aside the top favorites and deliver Hirschi into a favorably composed final group.

If Hirschi does make it through to the final 10km unscathed, few would bet against Switzerland’s prime puncheur.

Mathieu van der Poel (Netherlands): ⭐⭐⭐

• 2024 highlights:
  • Wins: E3 Saxo Classic, Tour of Flanders, Paris Roubaix
  • Gent-Wevelgem – 2nd Liège-Bastogne-Liège – 3rd
• Worlds best: 1st (2023)

Can reigning rainbow jersey Mathieu van der Poel hang with the climbers?

It’s a question that could govern the outcome of Sunday’s race.

It will be in every nation’s interests to zap Van der Poel’s fast-finishing legs before the final stretch toward the finish line. Only an outside contender like Biniam Girmay or Mads Pedersen would fancy taking MVDP into a sprint.

Expect Belgium, Slovenia, France, and GB all to be nipping at Van der Poel through Zürich’s vert-heavy course in the hopes of unhitching this cobblebasher extraordinaire.

That’s not to say Van der Poel can’t defend his title Sunday – he’s got three stars for good reason.

Tadej Pogačar and Remco Evenepoel won’t forget how MVDP hit the podium this year at Liège-Bastogne-Liège after he survived the grueling climbs of the Ardennes.

And it’s impossible to ignore how Van der Poel demolished the hills of Limburg in his breakout victory at the 2019 Amstel Gold Race.

The Zürich race-course doesn’t bode brilliantly for Van der Poel’s title defense, and he knows it.

The profiles of Zürich’s climbs are right at the edge of the Dutchman’s powers. That’s why he went hungry to strip some weight over the summer.

Van der Poel’s rainbow jersey hopes will hinge on his sleeker frame and his experience gutting out victories in the calendar’s most grueling competitions.

Julian Alaphilippe (France): ⭐⭐⭐

• 2024 highlights:
  • Stage wins: Giro d’Italia, Czech Tour, Tour of Slovakia
  • Clasica San Sebastián – 2nd, GP Montréal – 3rd Giro d’Italia stage – 2nd
• Worlds best: 2 x 1st (2020, 2021)

Julian Alaphilippe hasn’t assembled the remarkable 2024 palmarès of his hotly-tipped foes. A sensational long-range stage-win at the Giro d’Italia is the only true headliner in Lu Lu‘s season.

Yet in Alaphilippe’s case, results aren’t everything.

The Frenchman has refound his former flair and rolled back the years to his pandemic-era pomp. That could count for a lot in the cauldron of a worlds road race.

Alaphilippe will ride into Sunday’s race as one of a four-leader strategy for the French team. Team management has tipped David Gaudu, Romain Bardet, and Valentin Madouas for co-captaincy.

That said, the two-time world champion will surely be the true focus of France’s awesome foursome.

He doesn’t have the sprint to beat Mathieu van der Poel or the long-range engine to hold Remco Evenepoel’s wheel, but he’s one of the peloton’s craftiest and canniest.

Alaphilippe finds a way to win, in almost any scenario.

The French team typically turns world road races into white-knuckle rides of attrition, and that’s how Alaphilippe will thrive. Thomas Voeckler’s world championship “super team” will have to figure out a way to isolate and beat down the doyennes of durability Van der Poel and Tadej Pogačar however.

Alaphilippe is far from being a top favorite for Sunday’s race, but he’s impossible to overlook.

The 32-year-old will join Alfredo Binda, Rik Van Steenbergen, Eddy Merckx, Óscar Freire, and Peter Sagan if he pulls off an underdog third rainbow jersey Sunday.

The world championship outsiders

⭐⭐: Matteo Jorgenson, Primož Roglič, Biniam Girmay
⭐: Stevie Williams, Tom Pidcock, Maxim Van Gils, Michael Matthews, Pello Bilbao, Mads Pedersen, Brandon McNulty, Neilson Powless, Ben Healy, Michael Woods

The hilly but not horrendous Zürich course means the list of rainbow jersey outsiders resembles a pick ‘n’ mix of top-caliber talent.

All-rounders like Primož Roglič and USA’s Matteo Jorgenson sit alongside fast-finishers Mads Pedersen and Biniam Girmay. Aggro puncheurs like Tom Pidcock and Maxim Van Gils also earn a spot in the paddock of dark horses.

Riders like these will need to rely on the race rolling in their favor. None of them have the race-bending power and panache of crushers like Pogi and MVDP.

The worlds’ one and two-star contenders will need top-tipped teammates to pull out or similar unforeseen race scenarios in order to find a path toward a possible rainbow jersey.

Anything can happen in a world championship road race.

Jorgenson, Pidcock, Healy et al will be hoping for all the unpredictability possible.