The first of the elite road races take place on Saturday, as the best women in the world assemble in Kigali to take on a tough, hilly course.
The riders will complete eleven laps of the 13.6km course, featuring two short climbs - the 1.3km, 6.3% Côte de Kimihurura, and the 800m, 8.1% Côte de Kigali Golf. Those climbs might not be especially hard in isolation, but will take their toll after being tackled so many times during such a long day; by the final few laps, they will feel like mountains.
It’s a climber's course, and in the absence of defending champion Lotte Kopecky we will see a new World Champion crowned. In fact, in the absence of the retired Annemiek van Vleuten and an unsuited Elisa Balsamo, the only rider on the startlist to have won the World Championships inside the last decade is Anna van der Breggen. There’s the opportunity of a lifetime for several of the riders competing to wear the hallowed rainbow jersey.
The route is undulating and suits a climber (credit: UCI)
Contenders
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot
The woman of the season hadn’t initially planned to ride the World Championships this year, her victories at the Tour de France Femmes and Paris-Roubaix already making 2025 a perfect year for her. Now, she has the opportunity to make it even better. The chance to capitalise on her form during what’s been a stunning return to the road is too good to miss, and she’ll be looked at as the rider to beat, though there are some doubts about her form as she’s only raced once since winning her Tour de France title. If she does triumph, she'll follow in the footsteps of her compatriot Jeannie Longo to become only the second woman to win a Worlds title ten years after her first.
Ferrand-Prévot has won world titles in the road race, mountain biking and cyclocross
Demi Vollering
Can the Dutch get their act together at the Worlds this year? Despite boasting easily the strongest roster, they’ve missed out on gold three years in a row, having won five of the previous six titles. Demi Vollering appears to be their best chance for victory, especially on such a challenging course, but wasn’t at the very top of her game in the weekend’s time trial, where she was disappointed with the bronze medal. The rainbow jersey continues to be one of the glaring omissions on her palmarès; if she can win it, the various frustrations and near misses from this season will be redeemed.
Vollering has finished on the podium at the World Championships, but is yet to win the rainbow jersey
Elisa Longo Borghini
It’s difficult to know what to expect from Elisa Longo Borghini at this worlds road race. If she’s in the form she was earlier in the year, when she won the Giro d’Italia and a couple of spring Classics, she’ll be among the top favourites, especially given her knack for picking up major Classics wins in recent years. But she’s only raced twice since pulling out of the Tour de France in July, so we don’t yet know how well she’s recovered from the infection that forced her out of that race. The fact she won the Kreiz Breizh Elites Féminin so comprehensively on her return to racing bodes well.
Longo Borghini was third at last year's road race
Kasia Niewiadoma
The more selective a race is, and the less tactical, the better Kasia Niewiadoma tends to go, so she’ll be grateful for how much climbing is on the menu at the road race this year. Unlike a lot of her rivals, she always rides the World with the disadvantage of having a relatively weak Polish line-up, and will only have two domestiques to support her. She hasn’t hit the heights of her Tour de France-winning 2024 season, and was quite far down on Sunday’s time trial, but is consistent enough to likely be in the mix for a medal, and the quality to push for gold.
Could Niewiadoma win the world title on Saturday?
Marlen Reusser
The season of Marlen Reusser’s life, in which she won overall titles at both the Tour de Suisse and Vuelta a Burgos and podiumed at both the Giro and Vuelta, was cruelly interrupted by an illness that forced her out of the Tour de France. Thankfully for her though, she’s shaping up to end it even better than she started, having taken gold at the Worlds time trial on Sunday. That result already makes her Worlds a resounding success, but she’ll want to carry the form that saw her win that race into the road race, for a course that, in her new guise as a quality climber, is one that she could win on.
Reusser won the time trial world title on Sunday, her first rainbow jersey
Kim Le Court
At the first ever African World Championships, could Kim Le Court become the first ever rider from Africa to win a World road race? The 29-year-old from Mauritius has been one of the stars of the season, especially in one-day races, the highlight of which was victory at Liège–Bastogne–Liège. Encouragingly, this Worlds route is compatible with that race, though given her punchy style and strength in small group sprints, she still would have preferred something lighter in terms of climbing.
Le Court has had the best season of her career in 2025
Other contenders
While Vollering leads the Dutch contingent, there are plenty of others riding who might fancy their chances of winning themselves. Anna van der Breggen in particular, having beaten her compatriot for the silver medal in the time trial, although Marianne Vos and Shirin van Anrooij may deem this route too difficult for their attributes. Similarly, the French have plenty of options in addition to Ferrand-Prévot, with Cédrine Kerbaol, Maeva Squiban, Évita Muzic and especially Juliette Labous all strong climbers.
Italy have decent strength in depth should Borghini not be at her best, with Siliva Persico and Soraya Paladin also riding. And for Switzerland, Elisa Chabbey will resume her double act with Marlen Reusser that can cause other teams so many headaches, with their paired massive engines.
Other nations are more dependent on one rider. Spain will likely have to rely on their experienced talisman Mavi García for a good result; 2023 bronze medalist Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig continues to be Denmark’s star despite an underwhelming season; and Niamh Fisher-Black gives New Zealand a rare shot at a medal.
Uttrup Ludwig is a dark horse for the world title
Prediction
The time has come for Demi Vollering to at last win a World title. She’ll have grown frustrated at a run that has seen her have to settle for podium finishes at the Worlds time trial, the Tour de France and the Tour de Suisse, but the stars might align with a route that suits her, the absence of nemesis Lotte Kopecky, and leadership of a strong Dutch team.
