Who will win in Paris? We choose each winner in Olympic highway racing

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PARIS (Velo) — The Olympic Video games kick off Saturday with highway racing in a long-running custom that sees the two-wheeled self-discipline take middle stage in Olympic competitors.

This 12 months it’s time trial that’s contested first, with elite men and women racing Saturday in a gritty, city 34.2km route that’s seen various high favorites criticize course circumstances.

Highway biking continues subsequent weekend in Paris with the lads racing Saturday and the ladies on Sunday on long-distance, difficult programs looping round better Paris.

Who will win?

Since professionals began racing in Olympic competitors in 1996, the price of a gold medal has steadily risen contained in the ranks of the professional racers. At first, it was seen as a pleasant add on, however this 12 months sees a number of high-profile riders in each the lads’s and ladies’s peloton put the Olympics on the middle of their racing ambitions in 2024.

With smaller groups sometimes seen in professional highway races, and with longer, monument-style distances, the highway races ought to produce some fascinating surprises.

The time trials this 12 months see the women and men racing on the identical course on the similar distance.

So who will come residence with the gold?

Under, Velo editors Andrew Hood and Jim Cotton predict the podiums for every gold, silver and bronze medalists in three days of highway racing within the 2024 Paris Olympic Video games.

Ladies’s time trial: Saturday, July 27

Andrew Hood: Time trials, at their essence, are all about energy and execution.

And when she’s at full flight, nobody can match Chloé Dygert when the tank is full.

Granted, the two-time world champion shall be a significant enigma, since she hasn’t raced on the highway since March. I count on Dygert to choose up the mojo mantle from Kristin Armstrong, and ship America its fourth gold medal in elite girls’s ITT.

After going by means of a lot, Dygert will get that gold medal she’s been working for therefore lengthy.

The Dutch are at all times good for a medal, however I simply don’t assume Ellen Van Dijk shall be again at her greatest in time for gold within the Olympics. After taking greater than a 12 months off the bike for maternity depart, she broke her ankle in a coaching journey lower than two months in the past simply as she was constructing towards her peak.

By way of energy and charm on the bike, Van Dijk shall be shut, and solely an excellent Dygert will deny her gold.

Elisa Longo Borghini will lean on her highly effective motor to ship what shall be a really shut race for bronze. There are a half dozen riders who can aspire for the ultimate podium, however the veteran Italian has improved her TT prowess and she’s going to use her Giro d’Italia-winning kind to fill out the medal spots in Paris.

1. Chloé Dygert (USA)
2. Ellen Van Dijk (Netherland)
3. Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy)

Jim Cotton: It takes much more than a fractured ankle to cease time trial terminator Ellen Van Dijk, and that’s why I’m tipping the Dutch veteran for the win.

Van Dijk was off her ft and struggling to stroll after she cracked her ankle final month in a coaching crash, however that didn’t cease the three-time world champion in her bloodyminded pursuit of an elusive Olympic gold medal.

EVD informed the press this week that her current damage barely stopped her coaching and she or he believes that the big-power Paris time trial parcours is sort of excellent for her.

The gold medal Van Dijk missed twice earlier than shall be hers this weekend in what’s going to absolutely be the 37-year-old’s remaining Video games.

Grace Brown will edge out U.S. powerhouse Chloé Dygert for silver.

Dygert has obtained the pace and the abilities, but it surely’s been a very long time since she raced on the highway and that would price her.

1. Ellen Van Dijk (Netherlands)
2. Grace Brown (Australia)
3. Chloé Dygert (USA)

Males’s time trial: Saturday, July 27

JC: Name it patriotism, name it optimism, name it no matter you need, however I believe 20-year-old sensation Josh Tarling will carry it residence for Crew GB.

The large 20-year-old Brit beat Remco Evenepoel and dominated everyone else final autumn on the European championships, and he’s constructed his whole season round grabbing Olympic gold forward of his elders.

The flat and quick course on faucet this weekend fits Tarling’s steamrollering energy, and Crew GB has finished all the pieces potential to make sure he’ll win – together with stealing away Filippo Ganna’s coach, Dario Cioni.

Ganna wolfed up the time trials of the Giro d’Italia earlier this summer season and gained his nationwide title, however my spidey senses say his current observe coaching could have blunted his long-range endurance.

And Remco? He left his greatest legs someplace within the Alpine assault of the ultimate week of the Tour de France.

1. Josh Tarling (Nice Britain)
2. Filippo Ganna (Italy)
3. Remco Evenepoel (Belgium)

AH: The lads’s race is a tricky one to name. Will or not it’s riders coming off the Tour de France, with lower than per week restoration? Or will the winners be within the batch of riders who skilled and focused completely the Olympics?

I’m choosing the second situation, and I believe Filippo Ganna shall be unstoppable on the flat imply streets of Paris.

The Italian is overdue gold within the time trial, and his work on the observe to defend Italy’s gold medal in group pursuit will imply that he shall be on peak boil. Ganna will be hit and miss, however this time, will probably be Prime Ganna all the best way for gold.

Behind him shall be a good battle for the opposite podiums. Defending world time trial champion Remco Evenepoel gained the primary TT on the Tour, however is letting or not it’s recognized he’s useless after coming off the brutal remaining third week when he buried himself to defend third total.

That Tour kind won’t disappear, nonetheless, and Remco can have sufficient within the tank to hit a media, more than likely silver, simply primarily based on his pure effectivity towards the clock.

The race for the third remaining spot on the rostrum shall be tight. Anybody from Derek Gee to Stefan Küng and Brandon McNulty to Josh Tarling may all pop a fantastic journey.

Hopefully it gained’t rain, and all of the riders can compete in the identical circumstances.

I believe Magnus Sheffield had his thoughts set on the Olympics for a very long time, and after recovering from the trouble of his grand tour debut on the Giro d’Italia, when he was third within the first lengthy TT behind Tadej Pogačar and Ganna, the younger American will ship the massive journey he wants on the day.

1. Filippo Ganna (Italy)
2. Remco Evenepoel (Belgium)
3. Magnus Sheffield (USA)

Males’s highway race: Saturday, August 3

AH: Large races see the massive names step into the body, and there’s no greater prize this season than the Olympic gold medal.

With smaller groups and a really lengthy, difficult course, solely the six-hour monument males can have an opportunity for gold.

One other issue would be the Tour. Riders who accomplished the Tour however weren’t combating for what was a brutally troublesome GC will even have the sharpness and depth of their legs to go the space.

So the sector of favorites shall be whittled down slightly shortly, and the creme de la creme will separate on the closing circuits.

It’s arduous to wager towards Mathieu van der Poel. MVPD was underneath the radar and out of hassle throughout the Tour, solely lifting his head as soon as on the gravel stage and some occasions to assist lead out Jasper Philipsen, in any other case he was on a three-week coaching camp for Paris.

Different riders who come out of the Tour robust shall be Wout van Aert, Matej Mohorič as properly Spain’s Oier Lazkano. Riders who didn’t race the Tour, like Michael Woods or Julian Alaphilippe, shall be lacking the depth to race so lengthy, although Mads Pedersen may wreak his revenge after crashing out of the Tour.

1. Mathieu Van der Poel (Netherlands)
2. Matej Mohorič (Slovenia)
3. Oier Lazkano (Spain)

JC: I do know it’s the plain alternative, but it surely’s not possible to look previous Mathieu van der Poel on a lumpy, advanced course like that in Paris.

Positive, MVDP was AWOL for a lot of the Tour de France, however he claims he rode himself again to form through the three weeks and that he’s raring to pulverize all of Paris.

And simply have a look at Van der Poel’s palmarès. He slays virtually all earlier than him each spring and was the Tadej Pogačar of the pavé in 2024. The 29-year-old’s classics race-craft and seven-hour engine gained’t have simply vanished in just a few misfiring months.

Van der Poel is aware of find out how to be good for the world’s largest races.

He’ll be again to his devastating greatest subsequent Saturday.

Wout van Aert and Mads Pedersen shall be sizzling on MVDP’s heels in Paris, similar to they have been by means of the cobbles of the Belgian spring.

I concern Pedersen can have misplaced just a few proportion factors since he crashed out of the Tour de France, leaving Van Aert to play bridesmaid in second behind his everlasting Dutch nemesis.

1. Mathieu van der Poel (Netherlands)
2. Wout van Aert (Belgium)
3. Mads Pedersen (Denmark)

Ladies’s highway race: Sunday, August 4

JC: The all-slaying classics queen that’s Lotte Kopecky needs three gold medals throughout highway and observe racing on the Paris Video games.

The highway race subsequent Sunday gained’t be one in all them.

I’m tipping Elisa Longo Borghini to show the tables on her classics for subsequent weekend.

ELB roars into Paris along with her greatest kind and some added “confidence watts” after her current GC victory on the Giro d’Italia Ladies.

One other consider Longo Borghini’s favor is the depth of her Italian group. Elisa Balsamo, Silvia Persico, and Elena Cecchini supply the kind of brute power missing from Kopecky’s Belgian backing band.

And speaking of brute power, the Dutch armada shall be sunk subsequent Saturday.

Marianne Vos, Demi Vollering, Ellen Van Dijk, and Lorena Wiebes are a humiliation of riches. However the Paris parcours is ideal for less than one in all them – “The Boss.”

I count on Vos to be “better of the remaining” behind a good battle between Kopecky and Longo Borghini within the remaining run towards the road within the Trocadero.

1. Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy)
2. Lotte Kopecky (Belgium)
3. Marianne Vos (Netherlands)

AH: Lotte Kopecky shall be unstoppable, very like she has since successful the world title final summer season, and can win on their lonesome within the picture in Paris.

The route will favor a decreased group pulling away, and I believe Kopecky can have the engine to drop everybody after which have the fuel to carry the hole to the road.

Whoever is left can have a determined chase to the end, the place Lorena Wiebes shall be hiding within the peloton to complete off the reduced-bunch dash. Nobody else can match her ending pace.

Kristen Faulkner, who was tapped to race after triathlete Taylor Knibb gave up her highway race spot in favor of the time trial, is a wild card who’s been successful in all types of artistic situations all season lengthy.

1. Lotte Kopecky (Belgium)
2. Lorena Wiebes (Netherlands)
3. Kristen Faulkner (USA)