Update: 07.10.2022 10:26
Issued by: 07.10.2022, 10:26
Vicenza (Italy) – Two weeks after the world championship in road cycling, another world championship awaits Zdenek Štybara. The three-time cyclocross world champion in the elite category will compete in Vicenza, Italy on Sunday for the start of the premier gravel racing championship.
The competition on bikes adapted for driving on gravel roads also attracted other stars to the Italian Veneto, led by the three-time world champion on the road Slovakian Peter Sagan and the Dutch all-rounder Mathieu van der Poel.
“It’s a challenge. I like that it’s a kind of combination of road and cyclocross, so I want to try it. Gravel reminds me a bit of the classic Strade Bianche, my passion. And besides, I don’t want to end the season when I’m in the middle of it due to illnesses he raced so little,” Štybar said in an interview for MfDNES.
At the end of September, he took 42nd place as the best Czech at the World Championships in Wollongong, Australia. On Sunday, he will be the only Czech representative in the 194 kilometer race among the elite.
The peloton will also include other well-known names from road racing, such as the Italians Davide Ballerini, Daniel Oss and Alessandro De Marchi, the Kazakh Alexej Lucenko, but also the former world champion in the mountain bike marathon, the Austrian Alban Lakata.
Among the women, Frenchwoman Pauline Ferrandová-Prévotová, who has already won the World Championships on the road, on mountain bikes and in cyclocross, will strive for another title in her extraordinary collection on the 140 km long track on Saturday.
gravel cycling
