World Championships in Zurich, Ganna will do the time trial and mixed relay. Ciccone and Tiberi are the tips for the inline test

The invitations for the Road Cycling World Championships in Zurich (from 21 to 29 September) have been issued. In the men’s elite category the blue colors will be defended by Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers), who returns to the national team after the Olympic silver, ed Edoardo Affini (Visma|Lease a Bike) in the individual time trial, scheduled for Sunday 22 September, and by Andrea Bagioli (Soudal-QuickStep), Mattia Cattaneo (Soudal-QuickStep), Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek), Marco Frigo (Israel-Premier Tech ), Lorenzo Rota (Intermarché-Wanty), Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious), Diego Ulissi (UAE Emirates), Edoardo Zambanini (Bahrain Victorious) and Filippo Zana (Jayco-AlUla) in the road race (Sunday 29 September, on a route very hard, with a difference in altitude of over 4 thousand metres). However, the places available to Italy for this race are 8 and therefore one of these riders will not be fielded, filling the role of reserve. There are six debutants: for the role of captain, the coach Daniele Bennati (zero medals between European and World Championships since he inherited the position from Davide Cassani) should rely on Ciccone and Tiberiboth of which however retired at the last Vuelta. The last blue rainbow jersey in the road race dates back to 2008. It will be a very tough World Championship with two great favourites, the phenomena Tadej Pogacar and Remco Evenepoel.

Italy will field Edoardo Affini, Mattia Cattaneo, Filippo Ganna, Elisa Longo Borghini, Gaia Realini and Soraya Paladin in the mixed time relay, a competition scheduled for Wednesday 25 September: a medal in this specialty, after the European gold, seems well within the reach of the blue. Giulio Pellizzarrirevelation of the last Giro d’Italia, will be at the start of the U23 test with Davide De Pretto, Francesco Busatto, Pietro Mattio and Florian Samuel Kajamini.

The women’s trials

For the women’s races, the Italians designated for the elite trials are Vittoria Guazzini (FDJ-Suez) and Gaia Masetti (AG Insurance-Soudal) for the individual time trial (Sunday 22 September), while Alice Arzuffi (Ceratizit-WNT), Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek), Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek), Barbara Malcotti (Human Powered Health), Erica Magnaldi (UAE Team Adq), Soraya Paladin (Canyon//Sram) and Gaia Realini (Lidl-Trek) will be in action in the road race, scheduled for Saturday 28 September. The first scheduled race is Team Relay paralimpicoSeptember 21st. The Paralympic races will be a daily event, until September 29, with the men’s H4 and H5 road race.