Tuesday Previews: Elite Women and Junior Boys ITTs

Quick rundown of Tuesday's action.

The Course!

By all appearances it's a classic UCI course, in that it isn't very quirky or technical. It's a power course with as few variables as possible from the anticipated story line that the strongest person will win. And I guess they will.

Profile...

Ah, but it does appear to get difficult at times, in small portions. That may disrupt the rhythm of a few riders, but mostly the story is that it's a good course to blast out a hard tempo for a while, and not worry about too much else. [Weather permitting.]

Boys Junior ITT

No startlists, no previews, not much to say. Watch out for the Germans! Or the Danes. They seem to like crono's.

Women's Elite ITT

It's a star-studded startlist, with Linda Villumsen, Emma Johanssen, Anna van der Breggen, Ellen van Dijk, Tatiana Antoshina, Evelyn Stevens, Kristin Armstrong, and Lisa Brennauer on the list of people to watch.

Brennauer has to come in as the favorite. She is the defending champion in the discipline, won the Thuringen ITT stage, and just helped lead Velocio-SRAM to the win Sunday in the TTT. Stevens and van Dijk were both behind the Boels Dolman team's near-miss Sunday, and Stevens won the ATOC ITT. Van der Breggen may own the year's best effort with a full one-minute win in the Giro Donne crono stage, and she too is presumably OK after piloting the Rabo Liv team yesterday, when they took bronze.

I'm going with Brennauer. Her form is indisputable -- she won the Boels Holland Ladies Tour GC and ITT stage just two weeks ago; she won the Thuringen ITT, and hasn't lost in the discipline since (weirdly enough) the German Nats. There, Mieke Kroger took her in a 30km event by 39 seconds. [Mienke is in Richmond as well.]  Stevens could ride the hometown excitement to the win, but it's Worlds, everyone is excited. It's more about form and pedigree. Brennauer appears to have a wee bit more of both.