World Championships Time Trial 2023 - Betting Favourites

Date: Friday, August 11th, 2023

The individual happens after the road race this year, so expect almost everyone to attempt their hand at it.

Key Players

Will another dark horse like Foss make a remarkable run and claim the crown this year? Or will it fall to the tried and true favourites like a Ganna or Kung? We'll see. We're especially excited to see what the markets think as the odds haven't dropped yet.

We expect Josh Tarling to perform well. Despite most likely being short, given he almost beat Ganna out in the ITT in the Tour de Wallonie. We know Wout van Aert has been reconning the course and will likely be the favourite alongside Ganna, but his performance hasn't been extremely stellar this year (we mean, we're cutting him some slack, dealing with newborns is stressful).

We almost always rep the young guns however, given they know what CdA is - so we're also liking Finn Fischer Black and Magnus Sheffield to have some strong performances.

Don't count out Tadej Pogaçar from a T3 performance. Actually never count out Tadej from a T3 performance. Especially at one day races. Have you seen this stat?

Women

Reusser seems strong after last year's 3rd and overall she's been performing better in our eyes, with some remarkable solos like at Gent - Wevelgem this year which she took the crown.

Agnieszka Skalniak-Sójkais also a strong contender, coming in after winning the nationals at Poland, and has decent odds for a top three performance.

Dygert seems to be showing up this year, and after he recent win on the track is looking incredibly strong.

Remember that the women's race is on the Thursday the 10th of August.

We think Cordon Ragot to finish in the top three at 21.00 is decent value. Otherwise it's a little hard to find value otherwise given the short odds.

Value Picks

There is always value within time trials. You just got to put in the hours of research. Pay attention to the national time trials that happened in June. It should prove a good baseline for how people are performing.

The Course

[LFR]
Elevation Gain: 265m
Length: 48km

A decent amount of kickers throughout the course - with the four main ones in the second half of the course. You got 0.8km @ 3.2%, 0.4km @ 5%, 0.3km @ 3.7%, 0.6km @ 3.7% and then right to the line you have the worst at 0.8km @ 5.5%.

That last 800m is going to have some impact, and especially when you factor in all those other smaller kickers. It's not a lot, but a lighter TT'er may gain a slight benefit over the pure seated power behemoths. The descent off the Kippen climb at the 30km marker is also quite steep, so a strong descender could gain a couple seconds off of it if they pull a full threat of death descent.

50km is a long course though for a time trial, with most of the time trials during the stage events during the year maxing out at around 40km. Riders who've been training specifically at threshold and for this event should be gaining a benefit.

So basically those folks who haven't been racing the Tour of France all July might get a slight edge up.

The course itself isn't that technical, and for the roughly 50km has only a small number of hard turns. We're counting around ten. There's that hard turn around at halfway that may prove tricky if it's wet (we mean, we're talking about Scotland here, it's probably going to be wet who are we kidding).

The final zigzag into the finish line will prove tricky, especially if a rider is trying to gain a few seconds on their competitors they may get a little too risky and end up on the asphalt. We'll see. Will be interesting.