ANALYSIS | Van der Poel, Vingegaard, Van Aert... The 5 biggest names missing from the Kigali World Championships

It’s finally time for the biggest weekend of the cycling season. It’s time for the rainbow jerseys to be handed out. This weekend’s world championships road race in Kigali will crown 2025’s world champions on one of the hardest courses in recent memory, but it will do so without several of the sport’s biggest names. For different reasons, family, injury, season management, or simply timing, some headline acts won’t roll down the start ramp. Their absences change tactics, redraw leadership hierarchies and subtly alter how the finale could unfold on Mount Kigali and Kimihurura. Here’s why each rider isn’t there, and what it means.

The 2023 world road champion is not on the Dutch start list for Kigali, a decision confirmed by the KNWU in mid-August. In his place, the Netherlands shifted leadership to Thymen Arensman after his two Tour de France stage wins, with Bauke Mollema and others forming a climber-heavy support group for a course that piles on altitude and repeated ascents.

On paper, many of the climbs on Sunday’s route look tailor made for Van der Poel. But, in truth, it is likely the accumulation of climbing would be too much for him, and that is overall the reason why Van der Poel won’t be here. Van der Poel won a seventh cyclocross rainbow jersey back in February, and has won two monuments, and a Tour de France stage, in 2025. But, after competing in the mountain bike world championships earlier this month, he called time on his campaign.

Koos Moerenhout as much as admitted the team would have to be opportunistic without Van der Poel: “We don’t have a clear favorite this year, like we did with Mathieu van der Poel,” he said to Cycling News. “Thymen Arensman has, of course, done some fantastic performances and he will certainly be a key player. But several other riders will also have the freedom to compete heading into the final.”

The two-time Tour winner and recent Vuelta winner publicly ruled out Kigali and pivoted to the European Championships in France a week later, a target that better fits his calendar after the Vuelta. At one point in 2025, it looked like we would see Pogacar and Vingegaard face off twice after the Tour, at the Vuelta and the world championships. Instead, we will have to wait until next July for a showdown between the two best climbers.

He explained the calculus in his pre-Vuelta press conference: “We have decided that we want to go for the Europeans instead. You need to be really fresh to go to World Championships this year. It requires a lot of the riders participating in it, and we don’t know how I’ll come out of the Vuelta. We decided it was better not to do it. I still want to do the European Championships instead and I’ll have some time after the Vuelta to focus on that.” The effect for Denmark is immediate: leadership passes to Mattias Skjelmose on a course that still rewards climbers but arrives a touch too soon after a three-week Grand Tour for Vingegaard’s liking.

From a race-shape perspective, Vingegaard’s absence removes one of the few riders able to match Tadej Pogacar in pure uphill tempo when the bunch is already thinned to the bone. It also alters how other teams mark moves, without the Danish favourite, the onus shifts even more heavily onto the likes of Belgium, Spain and Britain to chase late-race accelerations, particularly from Pogacar.

Team Visma | Lease a Bike’s other perennial headline act won’t be in Kigali either. After a year that included two Grand Tours, the Spring Classics block and a late Tour de France stage win where he dropped Pogacar, Van Aert and Visma Lease a Bike set an earlier finish line for 2025.

“It’s important to still set some important goals for the last part of the season, and with this calendar, we’ve certainly succeeded,” he said of a schedule that ended at the Super 8 Classic last weekend. “At the same time, after such a packed season, it’s crucial not to overdo it. That’s why we’ve decided to end my season after the Super 8 Classic and skip both the World Championships and European Championships.”

His absence also forces a sharper definition of roles around Remco Evenepoel, particularly in heat and altitude where resource management becomes the race inside the race. Without Van Aert’s power on the cobbles to close counters, Belgium’s support cast must be more selective about which moves they mark and when to commit domestiques to tempo. It’s not fatal to their chances, Evenepoel has won countless races without Van Aert, but it narrows the margin for error on a profile that punishes one bad decision. It’s all in for Evenepoel for Belgium.

The reigning two-time women’s world road champion decided earlier this month not to defend her title in Kigali. Belgian Cycling announced its rosters with Kopecky absent; national coach Ludwig Willems put the choice down to form and headspace. “She had hoped for a turnaround in the final weeks, but now she’s decided to skip the World Championships because she’s not convinced she’s 100% ready. It’s largely a mental issue,” he told WielerFlits.

He added, “We’re grateful for what Lotte has achieved. But we have to give her time to recharge, rest, and take stock. Then we’ll see a better version of Lotte in the foreseeable future.” Those quotes sit alongside a bruising stretch of injuries and back problems across the summer, compounded by her crash and subsequent vertebral fractures at the Tour de l’Ardèche, which ultimately ended her season and also ruled her out of the Track Worlds.

The tactical knock-on is stark for Belgium. With Kopecky out and national champion Justine Ghekiere later withdrawn after a high-speed crash at GP Stuttgart, the team is reduced to a punchy but less proven group, Marthe Goossens, Marieke Meert, Julie Van de Velde and Margot Vanpachtenbeke.

Kopecky was superb in both Glasgow in 2023, and in Zurich in 2024, but we will not see the same magic this year and Belgium will need to play another card. On a circuit that keeps climbing, they’ll likely race for the break and hope attrition brings the favourites back rather than controlling for a single leader. It’s a different Belgian script than the last two years, and it opens the door wider to the Netherlands and France.

The Dutch icon withdrew in the week leading into Kigali to stay with her family after her father underwent surgery. Netherlands coach Laurens ten Dam spelled out the decision, and its human logic, clearly to Cycling News, “Her father had surgery last week … it’s been a very tense and hectic few days for Marianne. I called her this morning and we both said ‘you’re staying home’.”

He added a line that doubles as the headline for the Dutch, “Marianne Vos isn’t necessarily replaceable. So I don’t want Femke to step into those shoes. I don’t want to put that pressure on her.” Femke de Vries replaces Vos on a Netherlands squad that still fields Demi Vollering and Anna van der Breggen on a course tailored to the pure climbers. Both Vollering and van der Breggen were on the podium of last week’s time trial, and in truth the course is better suited for them than for Vos.

From a competitive standpoint, Vos’s absence strips the Dutch of their most multi-tool finisher: a rider who can win from a reduced bunch, a small sprint, or a late-race counter. It nudges the team toward a more binary plan built around Vollering’s sustained climbing and Van der Breggen’s too. You can still win Worlds with that pairing; you just lose the fail-safe option that Vos so often provides in chaotic finales.