FanPost

Rund um die Nürnberger Altstadt - Women's World Cup

Sunday sees the final round of this year's World Cup, with ten laps of a 12.9 km circuit of Nurnberg old town due to settle the duel between Marianne Vos and Emma Johnasson. This race is one for the sprinters, with only one even vaguely tricky looking hill on the circuit, and that's just after the start line and 10k from the end.





The official site is quite good, with a downloadable circuit map and startlist, but Whicki Whizelan and Tiffany Crounwell will show you the problems they have with those tricky Australian names.

The main contest may be between Vos and Johansson, but they aren't being left to themselves. Columbia-HTC has a strong squad supporting Judith Arndt in her umpteenth return from injury this year, including Kate Bates and Emilia Fahlin, Nurnberger Versicherung (the team) bring out their strongest line-up of Charlotte Becker, Trixie Worrack and Amber Neben (currently driving through the night from the French Alps) to say farewell to their old sponsor, and Cervelo have their star sprinter Kirsten Wild, even if the rest of their A team are still in France. Other faces to look out for are Modesta Vzesniaskaite of Bigla, Rochelle Gilmore of Lotto and Aussie Vicki Whitelaw (as she prefers to be known).

The race itself kicks off at 11:45 local, but it is only one part of a day of bicycle based events. And interestingly they seem to have lots of races on the same circuit at the same time, including a two lap race for under 15s starting out five minutes behind the women. No sign of any coverage yet, but I'm sure that something will eventually appear, even if it is just on the local news.