Bigla Pro Cycling Team News:

Vårgårda World Cup Preview

The UCI World Cup continues this weekend in Vårgårda with the team time trial on Friday and the road race on Sunday. The TTT course takes place over 42,5 kilometres, a relatively flat course with some short climbs included.

The Bigla Pro Cycling Team was dealt a blow recently when strong time trial rider Annemiek van Vleuten was hit by a car. With the former Dutch national time trial champion recovering from injury and not available for selection, the team will still start with a trio of national champions in Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio, Doris Schweizer and Lotta Lepistö.

Included in the line up is runner up in the US national time trial championships, Carmen Small, Joëlle Numainville and Vera Koedooder.

“We’ve done some training on the course,” Team Manager, Thomas Campana said. “The level is really high and all the big teams are well prepared. It will be challenging without Annemiek but as always it’s another opportunity to shine. This will of course be a test to see where everyone is ahead of the World Championships.”

The road race on Sunday, 23 August, features a revised course. The race will start with 56.5 kilometers of which about 2.5 km is gravel road, before completing 7 laps of 11km.

“We had a bit of bad luck in Norway with Lotta getting sick but it was good for the team to get good mileage and training out of the race. The race is long and they’ve changed the course this year and it might change the race completely from other years. I think there is a lot of uncertainty. A break with strong riders could go to the finish but we have to see the teams’ line-ups. If there are 11 teams with strong sprinters the chances are good that it can be a sprint. Our chances are good because we have a lot of riders in good shape.