Fabian Cancellara recently stated that he might never get to win the World Championships road race. The Swiss rider has won Milan-San Remo, the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix and the World Time Trial Championships but hasn’t managed to get on the podium for the road race. The 34 year-old will miss out on next Sunday’s race and time is running out for him to claim the title.
If he doesn’t manage to win the title, then he will join a long list of illustrious riders who haven’t been crowned World Road Race Champion.
In the 50s, the Swiss rider Hugo Koblet won both the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France, but never managed to claim the Worlds and another one of the top riders from that era, Charly Gaul from Luxembourg could only manage a bronze medal in 1954.
Ten years later, Jacques Anquetil, became the first cyclist to win five Tours de France. He also won the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a Espana during an illustrious career. His best opportunity to win the Worlds was possibly in 1966. However, on a tough course at the Nurburgring motor racing circuit, Rudi Altig took the victory while Anquetil and team mate Raymond Poulidor seemed more interested in ensuring the other didn’t win. Anquetil had to settle for silver.
Roger de Vlaeminck was described by Rik Van Looy as “the most talented and the only real classics rider of his generation”. However, his best result in the Worlds was 2nd in the 1975 race in Yvoir behind Hennie Kuiper.
Sean Kelly was another great rider who never managed to win the title. He won a bronze medal in 1982 in Goodwood, where Giuseppe Saronni took the victory, but his best chance was possibly in 1989. Kelly was in a small group who had escaped towards the end of the race in Chambery and would have been considered the strongest sprinter in the group. However, Greg LeMond proved fastest at the end and Kelly had to settle for bronze again, as Dimitri Konychev finished in 2nd.
Another top rider from that era who claimed numerous big victories but didn’t manage to win the title was Frenchman Laurent Fignon.
In 1995, Miguel Indurain joined the list of riders who won the Tour de France five times. In the Worlds later that year in Colombia, he became just the second rider to claim the World Time Trial title. However, in the road race, he had to play second best to his team mate Abraham Olano in the road race. He had also won a silver medal in 1993 and bronze in 1991.
More recently, Alejandro Valverde has become the rider to win most road race medals ever with two silver medals and four bronze, but has never won gold. Likewise, Alberto Contador and Vincenzo Nibali have never won the title. All of these riders, along with Cancellara are now in their thirties, so it seems that some, if not all are going to join the list of big name riders to never win the Worlds.
