UCI Road World Championships 2024: Men's time trial guide – Remco Evenepoel and Stefan Kung set for titanic tussle

It’s not often that riders get the chance to take gold medals and rainbow jerseys in their own back yard. Michael Matthews came close two years ago in Wollongong, taking bronze in the men’s road race, the same year Grace Brown took silver in the women’s time trial. Wout van Aert and Remco Evenepoel finished on the time trial podium in Flanders in 2021 but, crucially, below Filippo Ganna on the top step.

In fact, Italy’s Ganna is the only rider this past decade who has managed to deliver the goods in front of his home supporters, the towering TT specialist powering to the first of his two World titles at Imola in 2020.

But this weekend Switzerland’s Stefan Kung has the chance to change all this in Zurich as the 30-year-old looks to build on his fine form from the Vuelta and cause an upset in a competition everyone expects Evenepoel to win by a country mile.

Defending world champion Evenepoel pulled off a remarkable time trial and road race double at the Olympic Games earlier this summer, notably beating Ganna and Van Aert to time trial gold in Paris. But the Belgian was short of his best in last month’s Tour of Britain and may head to Zurich with his season’s best days behind him.

Kung, by contrast, rode with metaphoric diamonds in his legs throughout the Vuelta – regularly getting into breakaways and notching four top 10s before finally breaking his Grand Tour duck with victory in the final day time trial in Madrid. The Swiss-on-a-roll notably put 31 seconds into his nearest opponent, Slovenia’s Primoz Roglic, in the 24.6km race of truth.

And even a slight setback last week in the Belgian town of Hasselt – where Kung just missed out on adding a third European TT title to his back-to-back wins in 2020/21 – should not be a cause for concern for a rider who claims to be back to his best level.

“When you’ve been European champion twice, you want to win again, but in the end it’s a race against the clock and the clock doesn’t lie,” Kung told Cyclingnews after losing out to Italy’s Edoardo Affini by 10 seconds. “But sometimes it’s better to be behind in the rehearsal and then have everything for the big one, because Zurich is obviously the big goal.”

After bronze in Imola in 2020 and silver in Wollongong two years ago, Kung is now ready to go one better and complete the set. And this Sunday’s 46.1km course will suit a flat-track bully with an ability to climb with the best – something that will fill Kung with hope when he rolls down the ramp in the Oerlikon Velodrome in the northern part of Zurich.

A flat opening 20km sees the riders pass Lake Greifen before tackling two small climbs in a tough 9km sector that will prove crucial. Through trees and onto a lush plateau, the route rises 2.6km at an average gradient of 4.5% to a maximum elevation of 640m. The fast descent towards Lake Zurich is punctuated by a short 1.4km test at 5.1% ahead of a fast two-tier descent.

After a total altitude gain of 313m, the riders will then follow the shores of the lake all the way to the finish for long, flat and straight 12km section that will decide the outcome of the rainbow jersey.

“The time trial course is a really long one. There’s a flat section first, then a section with some hills and then the last part is flat again,” Kung said. “So you have to ride it in three parts – and it’s a real TT.”

Also flying the flag for the hosts is Kung’s namesake Stefen Bissegger, although he is unlikely to cause an upset. Slovenia’s Roglic will hope to build on his Vuelta-winning form while Britain’s Josh Tarling – who took bronze in Glasgow – will look to bounce back from his Olympic heartbreak, when a puncture in Paris dashed his hopes of a medal.

Three trade team-mates from UAE Team Emirates all have a solid case for making the podium: America’s Brandon McNulty won the opening TT in the Vuelta; Portugal’s Joao Almeida is a former U23 champion; Jay Vine a former Australian TT champion.

In the absence of Wout van Aert and Jonas Vingegaard, a far more likely cause for concern to Messrs Evenepoel and Ganna is the latter’s team-mate Affini, the recently crowned European champion. Norwegians Tobias Foss (the surprise 2022 champion) and Soren Waerenskjold are not to be discounted, while Danish duo Kasper Asgreen and Mikkel Bjerg are never shy of putting out huge watts. Throw in Canada’s Derek Gee, France’s Bruno Armirail and Belgian battle ram Victor Campenaerts, and that’s surely all the boxes ticked.

Should Evenepoel not be able to replicate his Olympic form from Paris in Zurich then Ganna – who has taken bronze and silver in the years since successive golds in 2020 and 2021 – is, on paper, the man to beat. But with question marks over the Italian’s form and fitness after his withdrawal from the Renewi Tour with fatigue, King Kung is next in line to the throne.

“I have to focus on myself,” Kung told Cyclingnews. “I know there is going to be a high-level field. Maybe one or two guys will be missing, but that’s always going to be the case and it’s always going to be hard to win."

"I know that from 2022, when I beat all the favourites and then I got beaten by Tobias Foss, who nobody really had on the favourites list that day. I know that you always have to push to the end and give the maximum of your effort to become world champion.”

Taking place earlier on the same day, the women’s TT could well see Olympic champion Grace Brown and defending world champion Chloe Dygert engage in a two-way tussle for gold.

European champion Lotte Kopecky and multiple world champion Ellen van Dijk should also feature, along with Dutch all-rounder Demi Vollering and Slovenia’s Urska Zigart. British interest comes from surprise silver medallist from Paris 2024, Anna Henderson, while last year’s bronze medallist, Christina Schweinberger, will represent Austria.

Starting in Gossau, the 29.9km route runs along the exact same roads as the men’s route – the only difference being the women ride a slightly different opening few kilometres before they join the men’s route ahead of the lumpy section, which begins after 8km. The two climbs – 2.6km at 4.5% and 1.4km at 5.1% – are the same, before the route drops down to the shores of Lake Zurich ahead of the flat and fast run into Zurich.

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