29. Previewing the World Championship road races

September 23 | The latest episode of the Telegraph Cycling Podcast looks ahead to the men’s and women’s world road race championships, one of the great weekends of the cycling year, being held in Richmond, Virginia. Rob Hatch joins Richard Moore and Lionel Birnie with Daniel Friebe also offering his thoughts on the course and the favourites for Sunday’s men’s race.

There’s an interview with Owain Doull, the young Welshman who is a contender in Saturday’s men’s under-23 road race. Doull, who finished third in the recent Tour of Britain, will lead a very strong British team which also includes the two Team Sky stagiaires, Alex Peters and Tao Geoghegan Hart.

“We’ve got a really strong team and I think any one of us could win the race,” Doull says. “I’ll be the protected leader but under-23 racing is really unpredictable. I think we have such a solid team and we have a plan that if one of us gets on the podium, that’s all that matters, whether it’s Tao, me, Scott [Davies] or whoever.”

Daniel discusses a course he describes as the most unusual in years – it isn’t clear whether the short steep climbs will split the field – which makes picking a winner extremely difficult. Riders as diverse as Germany’s John Degenkolb and Italy’s Vincenzo Nibali are heavily fancied, alongside Michael Matthews of Australia, Alexander Kristoff of Norway and the perennial second, Peter Sagan of Slovakia. In the women’s race, the favourites include Britain’s World Cup winner Lizzie Armitstead.

The Telegraph Cycling Podcast is sponsored by Trainer Road.