Etixx - Quick-Step has announced the selection that will participate in the 38.8km UCI World TTT Championship, which takes place in Richmond, Virginia of the United States of America on Sunday, the 20th of September.
The course is fast, with just 240m of elevation change. However, there is some up-and-down to the roads, including a hard right turn on to Governor Street near the end of the race, which then ascends for 300 meters before a hard left turn onto a false-flat finishing straight of 680 meters.
The selection for the UCI World TTT is Yves Lampaert, Niki Terpstra, Rigoberto Uran, Tom Boonen, Tony Martin, and Michal Kwiatkowski.
"We met with a few of the guys of the TTT on Monday, the 7th of September, to perform a good test prior to the UCI World TTT Championship," Sport Director Tom Steels said. "We went on the Ursel airfield in Belgium, which was perfect considering the surface and the long stretch of road, almost 3 kilometers of completely straight road. We collected some important data that we analyzed and we will for sure use this in preparation for worlds. It was also good to work on the slipstream and the combination of the riders. We even did some specific workouts focusing on the corners. So, I think it was important. It's also good for the riders to get focused on this event. It was like a first step in preparation. It gets them thinking about it. I saw the course on Sunday, and I have to say it will be pretty fast. There are some long, straight sections where the speed will be really high. There will also be fast downhills. So, keeping the right rhythm is important. It will be fast until the last climb, which is more or less in the last kilometer. It will be a tough finale for sure. It will be really close among the teams. It will likely be a question of seconds that differentiate the winner from the losers of this race. The finale can be something like the Worlds TTT of Valkenburg, in a way. That one was harder, but of course, it's important to save power for that last part of the parcours. The winner of the race will be decided likely at that point of the race. The riders of the team flew yesterday to Richmond, and today they will perform recon and training. The riders can see the complete course, which will be closed to traffic, on this upcoming Saturday. But, during the next days, we will do a lot of specific training and reconnaissance of the parcours, even if it is not full gas efforts. We want to check all the small details that, in a race like this, can make the difference."
Photo ©Luc Claessen