The Message of the Goddess.
When an athlete wins a World Championship, their lives are changed forever.
Published: September 27, 2024
The ancient Greeks associated the rainbow with Iris, the carrier of messages from Olympus, who flew with her golden wings above the seven colors to reach the Earth. Every year, a man is chosen by the goddess - kissed by grace, as those who are acquainted with the magical component of cycling would say - to wear the rainbow jersey. Not merely a success, but rather a consecration. It takes only an instant to cross the threshold of that white line, but an entire lifetime is not enough to understand how drastically that moment can change your life. Suffice it to say that whoever wins a World Championship has the right to wear the call of iris forever, to remind everyone and, especially themselves, that they have achieved something intimately great.
All and everything for eternal glory.
A roulette, that's what World Cup day is. You can feel lousy or over the moon, but that's just the race talking. Some of it is strategy, some destiny, often it is a matter of tenacity in pursuing the dream, knowing you only have one arrow to shoot. In cycling, the sharpshooter is often the one who turns the tables, the outsider who plays the favorite. Sometimes, the winner is simply the chosen one. There is certainly no exact science to winning the rainbow jersey but, if everything plays out over the course of a day - or rather a handful of hours - everything must be aligned - technique, luck, equipment, ingenuity - for the real magic to happen.
More than a hundred years of history.
The first World Championships were held in Copenhagen in 1921. The race was only open to amateurs and it was Sweden's own Gunnar Sköld who won the 190-kilometer individual time trial. Six years later, the first professional one was held. It was an Italian - Alfredo Binda - who emerged from the pack on the penultimate lap of the Nürburgring and took the first ever rainbow jersey solo. A performance that the champion went on to repeat in 1929 and 1932. The Italian shares this three-time record with other world cycling champions: Belgium's Rik Van Steenbergen, Spain's Óscar Freire and Slovakia's Peter Sagan, who all won the rainbow for three consecutive years. The record holder, however, is still the cannibal Eddy Merckx, the only one to have won a world title four times. Belgium is also on the top step of the podium as a nation, with twenty-seven world championships won in the elite men's road race, The Italians follow with nineteen victories and have not won since 2008, when Alessandro Ballan took the rainbow jersey. France, on the other hand, has had ten world champions, with Julian Alaphilippe's recent extraordinary double in 2020 and 2021. The Netherlands is fourth with eight champions, the last being Mathieu Van Der Poel last year.
A challenge in the heart of Europe.
Modern, cosmopolitan and inclusive: Zurich is a cradle of design and culture. Its strategic location in the center of Europe has enabled it to become a reference point for people from all over the globe. It is precisely around this city where the circuit that will decide the new World Cycling Champions is located. The race is 273.9 kilometers long and consists of a twenty-seven-kilometer circuit with a few climbs at the start and slightly undulating sections in the middle. The elite men's race will have to tackle it seven times, while the women's and under-23 men's races will have to complete it four times. The junior category, on the other hand, will face three laps.
The course is very hard and will be suitable for athletes with high endurance. The favorites this time will be the great climbers devoted to classics such as Liège-Bastogne-Liège or Il Lombardia. Monumental races with a romantic flavor, where instinct mixes with talent. A sumptuous march that will crown the new king, just like in a triumphant orchestral performance.