National Road Race Championship Course 2013 Glasgow
Former world champion Mark Cavendish heads a field packed with star names that will take to the streets of Glasgow a week on Sunday to contest the British national road championship, while Olympic silver medallist Lizzie Armitstead will be aiming to take back the title she won in 2011.
Team Sky have dominated the championships for the past three years, with Geraint Thomas, Bradley Wiggins and Ian Stannard all winning the right to wear the British champions’ jersey.
So far, that’s a prize that has eluded Cavendish, now with Omega Pharma-Quick Step, on the rare occasions he’s contested the race, but he looks like the man to beat in Glasgow – the profile of the 14-kilometre course above exaggerates the climbs, with a maximum elevation of around 50 metres.
Instead, it’s all those corners that are likely to cause problems during the 13 laps of the men’s race and eight laps of the women’s one.
Sky will be here in strength, but other WorldTour team riders looking to end their dominance include Steve Cummings of BMC Racing and Scots Andy Fenn of Omega Pharma-Quick Step and David Millar of Garmin Sharp.
NetApp-Endura’s Russell Downing, champion in 2005, will also take to the start at Glasgow Green, as will the last non-Sky rider to win, Rapha-Condor-JLT’s Kristian House who together with team mate Ed Clancy spearheads a strong domestic challenge.
In the women’s race, Armitstead will face competition to recapture her title from riders including defending champion Sharon Laws, recovered from injury, plus an in-form Hannah Barnes and a Wiggle-Honda line-up that includes Olympic team pursuit champions Laura Trott, Joanna Rowsell and Dani King.
That trio will also be riding in the time trial, which takes place a week today on Thursday 20 June in East Ayrshire, the first time it has been held to coincide with the road nationals. In the men’s version, Alex Dowsett, winner of an individual time trial in last month’s Giro d’Italia, will be going for his third national title in a row.
Highlights of the event will be broadcast on ITV4 on Monday 24 June at 19.00 and further information, including full entry lists, is available on the event website.
Born in Scotland, Simon moved to London aged seven and now lives in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds with his miniature schnauzer, Elodie. He fell in love with cycling one Saturday morning in 1994 while living in Italy when Milan-San Remo went past his front door. A daily cycle commuter in London back before riding to work started to boom, he's been news editor at road.cc since 2009. Handily for work, he speaks French and Italian. He doesn't get to ride his Colnago as often as he'd like, and freely admits he's much more adept at cooking than fettling with bikes.
14 comments
Looks like the national criterium champs...
"eight laps of the men’s race and 13 laps of the women’s one"
if think you've got that the wrong way round
Long course for a crit...
Cheers netclectic, fixed that... we're all for equality between men's and women's cycling but that might be taking it a bit far...
Looks like a criterium, will be raced nothing like a criterium.
Its road racing Jimmy but not as we know it. Imagine allowed people to actually come out and watch some racing, families especially and having them watch the action over and over again.
The course may only reach 50m elevation but there is over 200m of climbing every lap and any hills may be short but they are very punchy.
Regardless of the course one of the Sky boys will still win no matter how much of a criterium the course may appear to be.
It'll be interesting to see how Cavendish fares, he's only got one team mate with him (the only other brit at OPQS). Going to take a fair bit to beat the Sky boys with their six top class riders.
Millar's even more isolated- no team mates, as no-one else on his team is British.
What are the rules on outright collusion between "small" teams? There's also the pair from BMC and Dowsett from Movistar. Might the World Tour team riders gang up on Sky?
There are no rules - happens all the time during the course of a race, anyway, if several teams have the same goals for how the race developes.
I reckon Millar and Dowsett will work for Cav. They're all good mates, and Millar and Dowsett are hardly specialists in this type of course, plus have none of their own team mates.
Not sure about Cummings and Blythe - Blythe might acually do very well on this course. For this reason I dont think all 6 will collaborate against Sky. But maybe 4 of them.
Sky will ride for Kennaugh, I'm sure. I reckon that's why he rode Lincoln, to sharpen up on a crit-like race.
Remember this is basically a test event for next years commie games.Which is probably why the likes of Cav and Millar are taking part.
Have'nt seen the run in to the finish,but my money would be on Cav.
It's certainly no crit,very technical course a bit like the opening stage of the Giro,but probably with rain
I wouldn't be surprised if Millar and Dowsett work with Fenn to help Cav as they are good friends. I hope Cavendish can win as it may be one of the few chances of being British Champion that he'll get.
Didn't know this was on. Going up to see my parents but train leaves Glasgow on the Sunday at 8.30am. Doh!
Will this be televised?
Don't forget Bath Uni/road.cc -er Liam will be gunning it for Wheelbase too!
Clearly our Uni CC development programme* is working well...
*not a real thing. Unless he wins. In which case, I devised the whole programme myself.
ITV4 are showing highlights on the Monday evening.
how much team support o the ProTeam riders bring with them? Clearly for just one or two riders there's not going to be the full coach, truck and three team cars.
If they can make it down Saltmarket without running any junkies over it's going to be a miracle...and some of the course is really pretty tight. Prettttttyy, prettty tight.