Road World Championships 2022 – Rider ratings: Ellen Van Dijk and Marlen Reusser headline women’s time trial

Who will be the women’s world time trial champion 2022? The Road World Championships begin on Sunday in Wollongong, New South Wales, with the race against the clock.

It’s the first time the competition has been held outside of Europe in five years, and the first time we’ve gone Down Under since Geelong hosted in 2010.

The riders will face a far-from-flat 34.2km, two-lap city-circuit. For the first time both men and women will ride the exact same distance, over the exact same course. Who will prevail in the battle of the bands? We’ve picked out the riders to watch.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ – ELLEN VAN DIJK, MARLEN REUSSER, ANNEMIEK VAN VLEUTEN

You may be wondering why the winner of the Tour de France Femmes, Giro Donne and Madrid Challenge isn’t a nailed-on, standalone favourite. The simple answer is those races gave her a grand total of 4.7km of riding against the clock and in that sole Giro Donne prologue, Annemiek van Vleuten finished a – for her – relatively lowly fifth place. The Olympic champion sensibly tailored her training this season towards her multi-stage race goals, which means her body is less conditioned than usual to this sort of test.

Of course you cannot count her out, or even down, but this one is far from a foregone conclusion.

Her Dutch team-mate, Ellen van Dijk is at least an equal and, if we were forced to split them, would probably just edge it. Van Dijk goes into the race not just as reigning champion, but with pretty solid form, having claimed a silver medal in the European Championships in Munich a month ago.

The only rider to beat her has to be up there with them, and the only athlete capable of penetrating the orange defence – the Dutch having won this race four out of the last five times – is Marlen Reusser. In Imola and Flanders Reusser had to settle for the second step on the podium, but her performances this season suggest she has found another gear.

On the road to Bar-Sur-Aube, she put her head down and tucked everything in for 23km, gliding to a first Tour de France Femmes stage victory by more than a minute. Her defence of the European title from the aforementioned Van Dijk indicates she is perfectly capable of beating – being – the best in the world.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ – KRISTEN FAULKNER, ANNA KIESENHOFER

Kristen Faulkner broke into the top tier of female riders this season – her first in the Women’s WorldTour – and brought herself plenty of attention by claiming the first maglia rosa of the Giro Donne. Demonstrating that wasn’t merely an outstanding day at the office, Faulkner finished her week with a second stage victory and walked off with the mountains jersey to boot. Might this course be a bit long for the American? At 34km, it might, but she is a powerful rider and could well be a contender.

One rider for whom the 21-mile test may, if anything, prove not long enough is Anna Kiesenhofer. The Olympic road race champion mugged the field at Tokyo and almost did the same again last week in Spain. Austrian Kiesenhofer took off less than a kilometre into the penultimate stage of the Madrid Challenge, and rode for a shade under 100 miles on her own before being swept up. Her motto is “dare to be different” and she lives up to it.

⭐⭐⭐ – GRACE BROWN, AGNIESZJK SKALNIAK-SOJKA

The local favourite, Grace Brown (FDJ Suez Futuroscope), was born just up the coast in Camperdown, NSW. Brown heads for home with a good chance of winning a medal, even as she starts as an outsider for the rainbows themselves.

The 30-year-old has won more races in 2022 than any of her previous professional seasons and all have been of the same level or higher than anything she’s achieved before. They included a stage of the Women’s Tour back in June – where she also almost won the whole thing, only to be denied by a rampaging Elisa Longo-Borghini on the final day – Commonwealth Games time trial gold in Birmingham and a very clever win at last week’s Madrid Challenge. There would be no more popular winner than Brown.

One name you quite possibly haven’t heard before – and almost certainly cannot pronounce – is that of Agnieszka Skalniak-Sojka. The Polish rider pipped better-known Marta Lach (Ceratizit-WNT) to the national time trial title back in June and has been winning races left right and centre, pretty much ever since: the prologue and the overall at the Lotto Belgium Tour, all three stages of her home Princess Vasa Tour and then, more impressively, another prologue and the general classification at the Giro Toscana in August. Skalniak-Sojka may not be there yet, but she’s definitely a rider to watch.

⭐⭐ – RIEJANNE MARKUS, GEORGIA BAKER

Having made her name this season as a domestique deluxe, the World Championships in Wollongong could be the chance for Riejanne Markus (Netherlands) to shine. Third in the Euros ahead of Kiesenhofer and Cordon-Ragot, she’s getting closer to the really big win and the chance to lead.

The same can be said of Georgia Baker. Another kinda local, except not really, because her birthplace of Launceston, Tasmania is almost a thousand miles from Wollongong, Baker, won the Commonwealth Games road race and came second in the Giro Donne time trial. With a strong home wind on her back, who knows what she can do.

⭐ – URSKA ZIGART, JULIETTE LABOUS, MIEKE KROGER

Into the also-runnings and it’s a few riders from big countries we haven’t yet named. None of Zigart, Labous, Van der Velde or Kroger will win (apologies) but all are capable of delivering something, and should be the best-placed of those wearing their national skinsuits.

– – –