“When you’re dealing with pollution, that’s a whole other problem” - Chris Horner on why favourites often falter at the World Championships

The World Championships are rarely predictable. History has shown that the riders who dominate in grand tours and classics often find themselves vulnerable on the one-day global stage. This year in Rwanda, the men’s and women’s time trials reinforced that pattern once more. Marlen Reusser crushed the women’s field to finally claim her long-awaited gold, while Remco Evenepoel added a third consecutive rainbow jersey in the men’s event. Yet some of the pre-race favourites, Tadej Pogacar and Demi Vollering among them, were unable to produce their very best despite strong results on paper.

Former Vuelta champion Chris Horner believes the answer lies not in form or talent but in the unique challenges that the World Championships present. On his “Beyond the Coverage” podcast, Horner argued that everything from air quality to national-team logistics can derail even the strongest riders. “When you’re watching these Road World Championships, you’ve got to understand that it’s quite a bit different from anything we would experience with our normal trade teams throughout the season,” he said.

The Kigali course was demanding enough on its own, but Horner pointed out that riders were facing a less visible opponent. “We know that there are some air quality issues here in Rwanda. We’re racing in Africa. And we know that the air quality is always above about 100 or hovering just above or just under the 100 air quality status.”

Several riders admitted the smog and dust had affected them. “Urska Zigart, the fiancée of Tadej Pogacar, brought up air quality and how much they were coughing afterwards,” Horner said. Vollering too acknowledged that it was an unusually hard day, saying after her time trial “the air quality is different here of course, but I didn’t struggle too much with the heat itself. My heart rate was just really high today, and I need to sit down, review everything and see what it was. But I think everybody struggled. If I can be third with these legs, then it shows how hard it was for everyone.”

Horner stressed that the nature of time trial racing made this issue even more acute. “In the individual time trial, when you’re going to a foreign place with air quality issues, and once you’re going 100%, you don’t have the ability, like in a team time trial, to back that throttle off and get the body back under control, because you’re going to end up losing too much time.”

The men’s race produced one of the most dramatic images of the week: Evenepoel catching Pogacar on the final climb. For Horner, the explanation was simple. “When you see Remco Evenepoel catching Tadej Pogacar in an individual time trial, it just means that he was really bad from the start and couldn’t find the legs, the ability to back the throttle off to get good again without losing too much time.”

Pogacar himself admitted the disappointment. “It’s a hard one to swallow, for sure,” he said afterwards. “But it’s Remco – he’s just so good in this discipline. Hopefully he gave 100% today and will only be 99% ready for us next Sunday.”

Belgium’s team doctor Kris van der Mieren offered another possible explanation, “Maybe the jet lag is still in his body. If that clears in a week, it could be in his favour. But if not, then I think he’ll struggle on Sunday against a super Remco Evenepoel.”

For Horner, the physiological issues go hand in hand with the disruption of routine. Riders spend nearly their entire season with trade teams that know their habits inside out. At Worlds, everything changes. “Every staff member is not used to working with you personally. For me, most of the time when I was racing domestically and certainly over in Europe, I liked a certain training regimen that always had to be the same.”

The podcast repeatedly returned to the question of preparation. Riders like Vollering and Pogacar arrived in Rwanda only a few days before their races, and training on unfamiliar roads quickly became a challenge. “When we’re talking about Urska’s interview, she said that they need to find some calm roads to train on. That is another problem when you’re leaving your trade team and leaving the European cycling areas where you’re used to racing.”

Australian Jay Vine voiced similar concerns. Horner connected the dots: “When we start looking at all these interviews and bringing them together, the men’s and the women’s, you look at the interview from Jay Vine, and he’s talking about how they need to be able to find the roads to train on too. If Jay Vine’s talking about finding quiet roads, that means that before the individual time trial championships, most likely nobody got the training in that was 100% ideal to what they’re used to doing.”

The result was that even top contenders felt off balance from the very start. “An experienced rider like Anna van der Breggen, when we look at her interview, we know that she had to back the throttle off, stay steady, and she was still able to get the silver medal. But that’s done on experience. If you come in younger, you could start to misread the changes and everything that’s happening around you, and all of a sudden you can’t find those quiet roads. You can’t get the training in, and your training can disappear in four days’ time.”

Horner emphasised that environmental conditions are only one piece of the puzzle. At Worlds, riders are pulled from their familiar trade teams and placed in national squads that may lack the same cohesion. “If you’re arriving early and you’re coming in three or four days before the individual time trial, staying the whole week until the road race finishes the next weekend, that means you have to be able to find some kind of normality in your routine, in your daily routine and in your training routine. And it’s very complicated.”

He illustrated the problem with a personal anecdote. “Every staff member is not used to working with you personally… I can remember when I won the Vuelta a España in 2013, I showed up for the World Road Championships just two weeks later. And in the race, directly in the race, I’m having one of my teammates go back and grab me a Coke and a Snickers from the car and nobody thought to bring any Snickers.”

For Horner, such lapses highlight how different Worlds can feel compared to the rhythm of a normal season. Even small disruptions in food, training, or equipment can snowball into major performance gaps.

This is why Horner sees experience as decisive in coping with Worlds. Riders like van der Breggen, who has lived through numerous peaks and troughs in her career, are able to recognise danger signs early and adjust pacing. Younger riders, however, can easily misread their form or push too hard too soon. “An experienced rider like Anna van der Breggen… had to back the throttle off, stay steady, and she was still able to get the silver medal. But that’s done on experience.”

The unpredictability of the time trials has only heightened intrigue ahead of the road races. Horner warned that the dynamics of the Worlds peloton will look very different from a grand tour or a monument. “Aside from everything else I’ve already told you, there are going to be fewer bigger teams able to control the road races. And whether or not those teams will work together is something else we’ve got to figure out altogether, too.”