Your Guide To the U.S. Women’s World Championships Team

Your Guide To the U.S. Women’s World Championships Team

On Saturday, September 23 the most accomplished female cyclists in the world will vie for the rainbow stripes.

Sep 22, 2017 by Ian Dille
Your Guide To the U.S. Women’s World Championships Team

On Saturday, September 23, the most accomplished female cyclists in the world will vie for the rainbow stripes. At the UCI Road World Championships in Bergen, Norway, the elite women will complete eight laps on a 19.1-kilometer circuit for a total of 152.8 kilometers.

The U.S. women will arrive at the start line amongst the favorites, with top-ranked sprinter Coryn Rivera and all-arounder Megan Guarnier supported by a U.S. team stocked with talent.

The Bergen course presents a prime opportunity for the U.S. women to win a world title.

Here’s what to expect in Saturday’s race.

The Course And Conditions

The weather is expected to be uncharacteristically clear and warm, with a high around 62 F. And that’s where any certainty in the race-day forecast ends.

Among the three hills the riders will come up against each lap, Salmon Hill is the longest and steepest; a true climber might call the 1.4-kilometer ascent, which averages out at a 6.5-percent grade, downright gentle. Cumulatively, however, the riders face 261 vertical meters each lap, a number that can add up to significant separation in the field if the pace is high.

Salmon Hill is followed by a short, technical descent, and a flat finish.

Will the race end in a breakaway, or a field sprint? Many teams will plan for both eventualities.

The Cast Of Competitors

In everyday life, it’s impossible to think of the Dutch as mortal enemies — they’re a happy, bike-loving people who eat chocolate sprinkles on toast. But at worlds, the Dutch team (with the likes of Annemiek van Vleuten and Anna van der Breggen, who took first and second in the time trial world championships on Tuesday) will strike a fearsome chord in the heart of competitors.

Others have placed their bets on individual riders such as Lizzie Deignan-Armitstead of Great Britain, Elisa Longo Borghini of Italy, Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio of South Africa, or Katarzyna Niewiadoma of Poland — riders who’ve earned their reputations with top performances among the crème de la crème of the European peloton both in 2017 and years past.  

But at worlds this year — and it’s not just our national pride talking — the seven-rider U.S. team is stacked deep with an experienced, diverse group of talent that stands out among race favorites. As individuals, each U.S. rider has the legs and skill to win the race. That's something you probably wouldn’t say about any other country — except, of course, for the Dutch.

But if the Dutch are a pack of wolves, the Americans are the lions in the grass.

The U.S. Team’s Not-So-Secret Weapons

Coryn Rivera — All eyes will be on the 25-year-old Sunweb Rider. Rivera stands just over 5 feet tall and bears a friendly smile off the bike. However, her ferocious sprint is akin to hiding a jet engine in a soda can. Formerly considered solely a pure sprinter, and a threat primarily on flat and fast courses, Rivera has been making it up the biggest climbs for the past few years.

Her development as a racer has prompted many teams in the peloton to ask, “Now what do we do?” Rivera has at least 71 national titles to her name (she’s been racing as a professional since the age of 16) and in April became the first American — male or female — to win the Tour of Flanders. This year she also took the win at the RideLondon Classique and Trofeo Alfredo Binda.

Megan Guarnier — The 2017 season has been a rough one for the Boels-Dolmans racer, as Guarnier suffered a concussion in February. But she’s rebounded this year to finish second overall at the Ladies Tour of Norway and fourth at La Course by Le Tour de France.

Guarnier has accrued a string of victories since 2016, when she took the overall wins at the Women’s Tour of California and the Giro Rosa (and was ranked first in the Women’s WorldTour). The U.S. national road champion in 2015 and 2016, Guarnier also took bronze at worlds in 2015. As a rider Guarnier is known for her intelligence (she has a degree in neuroscience) and quiet determination.

She also comes to the world championships with experience, having raced primarily in Europe since 2009. Look for her to thrive on the tough course and against top-notch competition.

The Time Trial Engines Powering The American Women

Amber Neben, Lauren Stephens, and Taylor Wiles raced the time trial world championships earlier this week and will most likely look to play a supporting role for Rivera and Guarnier. However, depending on how the race unfolds, they’ll arrive ready to win.

A veteran of the pro peloton for roughly two decades, Neben is the defending champion from the 2016 world championships time trial in Doha, Qatar. (She also won the worlds time trial in 2008.) On Bergen’s technical, rain-splattered course, Neben finished 11th.

Nonetheless, back-to-back victories in the 2017 time trial and at the road race at the national championships prove she’s in great form. Sometimes discounted because of her age — she's 42 — Neben has proven that when you can hold five-plus watts per kilogram on a bike, it doesn’t matter how many candles adorn your birthday cake.

Stephens and Wiles are excellent bets in a breakaway, but they’re good at pretty much everything else, too. Stephens, a former high school math teacher, held the overall lead at this year’s Tour Cycliste Féminin International de l'Ardèche before a crash in stage five. Other results this season include seventh-place finishes at both La Course and GP de Plouay. Whether assigned a lead or supporting role, Stephens methodically and ruthlessly performs.

Wiles won the general classification at Tour of the Gila this year and picked up a climber’s jerseys at Thüringen Rundfahrt der Frauen and the Tour de Feminin (where she also placed second overall). Like Stephens, the self-described “cookie monster” (Wiles really, really loves cookies) is a capable and savvy all-arounder. Given an inch, she can turn it very quickly into a few miles — and a win.

Will these time-trialing strong women concentrate on making the race hard early on? Or will they aim for a late breakaway or lead out? We’ll see on course.

The Icing On The Cake

Ruth Winder comes from a background in track racing and had recently made that her sole focus, but this year on the road she took overall wins at the Tour de Feminin, Joe Martin Stage Race, and Redlands Bicycle Classic. With that surprising list of palmarès for 2017, Winder is battle-hardened and medal-heavy coming into worlds.

Katie Hall is best known as a strong climber, this year finishing second overall at Tour of the Gila and the Tour of California. Given Bergen’s long, flat finish and minimal elevation change, this might not be Hall’s ideal course, but as with anyone on the U.S. team this year, ruling her out as a threat for the win could prove a fatal mistake.

The Big Picture

Winder, Hall, and Wiles all currently race for the same U.S. trade team, United Health Care Pro Cycling, and Rivera formerly raced for UHC as well. The fact that many of the Americans have raced together — and raced well — points to a good recipe for cohesiveness on the worlds course. The Dutch may have too many cooks in the kitchen, and no clear favorite for the win.

Beyond experience riding together as teammates and competitors, we can expect the hard-working personalities on the U.S. team to form a focused and dominant unit.

In an interview with inCycle earlier this year, Rivera spoke to her Sunweb team’s success. 

“As a leader you have to make sure that everyone’s on the same page and that everybody knows the goals and their roles,” Rivera said. “And so if that’s very clear and what their jobs have to be — and usually those jobs cater to their strengths — then we get a really good collection and we can really get the job done.” Her and the U.S. team will aim to get the job done in Bergen.

The women’s elite road race begins September 23, at 6:30 AM CST.


By Kathryn Hunter