This weekend sees the return of one of what has, since its inception in 2022, become one of the more difficult races to categorise of the season — the UCI Gravel World Championships. Is it an offshoot of the road season, a race in the manner of, say, Strade Bianche with its stretches of off-road surfaces, but still one that’s the domain of the WorldTour pros? Or is it the endpoint of the specific gravel season, a campaign that’s been going on since last autumn and been contested for by riders who specialise in these races?
A look at the protagonists of past editions suggests the former to be more true. Last year, two of the biggest stars in the WorldTour were crowned world champion on gravel. First Marianne Vos got the better of Lotte Kopecky to take the elite women’s title, adding a gravel title to go alongside her many others from so many different cycling disciplines. Then Mathieu van der Poel, having earlier in the year been so dominant in the cobbled Classics, applied his skill to the gravel to win the men’s race by a huge margin of over a minute.
Looking further back, it’s always been road riders who have taken the title, and even those without the multi-discipline experience of Vos and Van der Poel. In 2023, Kasia Niewiadoma claimed the title despite never having even ridden a gravel event before, and being very much a road race devotee. The men’s race went to Matej Mohorič, a rider who, despite having since embraced the format, was also at the time of his victory still a novice. Only in the inaugural edition of 2022 did a rider outside of the WorldTour take the title, when Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (then still on hiatus from the road) triumphed in the women’s race; and even she came to the event from a focus on mountain biking rather than the specific gravel events. The men’s race, meanwhile, was dominated by road specialists, with Gianni Vermeersch coming out on top.
These results suggest that, while experience of riding off-road helps, it’s not essential for a shot at being crowned the gravel world champion. The success enjoyed here from likes of Vos, Van der Poel and Ferrand-Prévot show the benefit of being adept at multi disciplines, and they all utilised the skills and techniques picked up from racing in the likes of mountain biking and cyclo-cross to enjoy success on gravel too. But whereas the list of former champions does contain a few novices of gravel racing, there’s nobody who has…