Wednesday’s Mixed Relay Time Trial and Saturday’s Women’s Road Race will see John Archibald and Anna Shackley compete for the Great Britain Cycling Team at the UCI Road World Championship in Flanders.
Archibald, who this season has made the step up to race for UCI Professional Continental outfit Eolo-Kometo, will make his second appearance at the UCI Road Worlds, having ridden this event and the Men’s Elite Time Trial in Yorkshire two years ago.
Archibald has enjoyed an encouraging season, racing Tirenno-Adriatico in May before issues relating to the pandemic kyboshed much of his race calendar. The latter part of the summer has seen an uptick in form with the French UCI 2.1 race Potiou-Charentes in Nouvelle-Aquitaine providing his best result of the season – a second place finish in the Time Trial – missing out on the stage by a solitary second to Ben Hermans (Israel Start-Up Nation).
The Mixed Relay will see Archibald reunited with former Derbados teammate and aerodynamicist Dan Bigham, with Alex Dowsett completing the trio. The format of the event will see the three riders ride 22km from the seaside town of Knokke to Brugge city centre before the three Women (Alice Barnes, Anna Henderson and Jos Lowden) ride a loop round the city of the same distance, with the fastest accumulative time between both Men and Women winning the rainbow stripes.
The course itself is similar to that used in the individual time trials, with a flat road that is exposed to the wind. The men will most likely have a tailwind into the city which could produce some fast times, whilst the women will face a more technical route as the loop around the historic city of Brugge. With 14 teams in action, it will be some exciting racing on Wednesday lunchtime as Archibald and Great Britain will look to improve on their bronze in Harrogate in 2019.
Anna Shackley will represent Great Britain in the Women’s Elite Road Race, which will cap off some season from the 20-year-old. Moving to the UCI Women’s World Tour squad SD Worx (formerly Boels-Dolmans) and riding alongside teammates such as Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio and Anna van der Breggen has paid dividends this season, with the Scot taking her first win since turning professional at the Rás na mBan in Ireland this month, winning a stage, the Mountains Classification and the overall General Classification.
Shackley was also picked to go to the Tokyo Olympics where she rode in support of Lizzie Deignan in the Road Race, before being the sole GB participant in the Time Trial, the Scot riding to a spirited 18th place finish.
The course for the Women’s Elite Road Race will see the riders race 157km from Antwerp to Leuven taking in a number of circuits in order to maximise the climbing, with 20 short punchy bergs to tackle on the race route. For the Great Britain squad, six riders are set to take to the start line, with the expectation that the team will work for Deignan again, however Shackley’s recent form may provide the team with extra options in the final kilometres as the finish is a sharp 300m climb that could throw a spanner of the works of some of the favourites.
The Mixed Relay Time Trial starts at 13:00 BST on Wednesday, with the BBC iPlayer and Red Button providing live coverage.
The Women’s Road Race starts at 11:20 on Saturday, with the whole race live on BBC iPlayer/Red Button, as well as GCN+ and Eurosport 1, with BBC Two showing live coverage of the final hours from 14:00.
