With Flanders being a cycling hotspot, it didn't take long for the UCI Gravel World Championships to settle in Belgium. After the first two editions in Veneto (Italy), the 2024 event will take place this weekend (5-6 October) between the Flemish Brabant cities of Halle and Leuven. The territory hosted the UCI Road World Championships, in 2021, but it’s time to explore very different challenges through the Forests of Brabant.
The Italian editions crowned France’s Pauline Ferrand-Prévot and Belgium’s Gianni Vermeersch (2022), then Poland’s Kasia Niewiadoma and Slovenia’s Matej Mohorič last year. Riders from all backgrounds now converge on Belgium, ahead of Nice (France) next year, Nannup (Australia) in 2026, Haute-Savoie (France) in 2027 and Alula (Saudi Arabia) in 2028.
More than 2,000 riders rapidly registered after they qualified through the events of the Trek UCI Gravel World Series which concluded at the end of September, with cousins Connor and Ben Swift dominating the Graean Cymru in Wales (Great Britain). Other participants have benefited from wildcards or qualified thanks to performances in the UCI World Championships, Continental Championships or National Championships for the discipline.
Through the forests
The racing will be held across two days, with 23 UCI World Champion titles up for grabs. On Saturday, Women Elite, all female age groups and male age groups over 50 years old will battle for the rainbow jerseys. On Sunday, it will be up to Men Elite and the male age groups from 19 to 49 years old.
All races start in Halle and finish in Leuven, with an 88km course linking the two towns, passing by the Hallerbos and Zoniënwoud natural areas. An extra loop around Leuven, through the Meerdaalwoud, will push the distance to 135km for the Women Elite, female age groups from 19 to 49 years old and male age groups from 50 to 64. The Men Elite and male age groups up to 49 will cover two laps, for a total distance of 182km.
The hilly courses feature punchy ascents and many ups and downs where riders can try to make the difference on all sorts of surfaces, with gravel, cobblestones and unpaved sections representing about 60% of the course. Some riders will already be familiar to these challenges, having already competed in the 2023 UEC European Gravel Championships that crowned the Netherlands’ Lorena Wiebes (Women Elite) and Belgium’s Jasper Stuyven (Men Elite).
The cream of the crops
Double road race UCI World Champion Lotte Kopecky headlines the Women Elite start list, but will face the likes of Wiebes, who spearheads an impressive Dutch participation including multidisciplinary talents such as Marianne Vos, Puck Pieterse (who has just added the Under-23 road race UCI World title to that for mountain bike cross-country Olympic in the Women Elite category) and 2024 UCI Cyclo-cross World Champion Fem van Empel.
Meanwhile, Stuyven, Mohorič and Vermeersch are among the many stars gearing up for the Men Elite race. And Dutch national coach Laurens ten Dam saves a wildcard for Mathieu Van der Poel, bronze medallist in the inaugural edition of the UCI Gravel Worlds…
When it comes to qualifiers from the Trek UCI Gravel World Series, the season was dominated by Germany’s Carolin Schiff, winner at the Wish One Millau Grands Causses (France), Hegau Gravel Festival (Germany) and Gravel Suisse (Switzerland). She will once again face other experts such as Australia’s Tiffany Cromwell (recent winner of the Sea Otter Europe Girona) and two-time US Gravel Champion Lauren Stephens.
Mexican road sensation Isaac Del Toro is ready to take on the gravel scene, where he’ll have to vie with seasoned experts such as Czechia’s Petr Vakoč, who dominated the men’s standings of the 2024 Trek UCI Gravel World Series with consistent podiums through the season and a victory at La Monsterrando (Italy) at the end of August.