Cycling Road World Championships 2024: men’s elite race – live

255 km to go: Poland, Portugal, USA and Latvia are the early break. The Qatari rider is way off the back; with the big boys now. The peloton behind them is huge. Then, when that drops back, another trio goes away. We’ve already seen Roman Bardet and Mikel Landa to the fore and nobody is being allowed to go – just yet. Estonia, a member of the refugee team – and Belize? Venezuela on the chase. It’s the United colours of Benetton in these early stages.

265km to go: The peloton makes its way down to Zurich through Schaffhausen. Lovely morning son, and fresh air too. The freshest it gets, Swiss air. In Europe, that is. Sad to say that the Honduran rider, Fredd Matute, who is 38, is out the back already. Long way to go, Fredd. Up at the front, no real pattern, though an American rider, Larry Warbasse is up in the vanguard.

And away we go…..

There’s just under 5km to the real start. Plenty of chat between the riders. The skies feature smatters of blue, far better than what came earlier this week. The Rhine Falls is passed – not to be confused with the Reichenbach Falls? They are zipping along in this virtual start, warming up the legs.

On the start line, the Swiss team take central stage as remembrance is paid, a moment of silence for Muriel Furrer. Her family have said they want the race to go ahead.

Here’s what the course will look like.

“Every time you have to start from zero,” says Remco Evenepoel, looking to add this to his time trial rainbow jersey. And Olympic gold. “All types of riders can win it.”

“Today’s going to be a hard and long race,” says Pogacar, who has been on a recce of the course with Matt Stephens. “It’s good to have him as a teammate,” Pog says of Primoz Roglic, fellow Slovenian. Between them, they won all three Grand Tours. It seems he plans to attack on the steepest section and that comes after the finish line of the circuit. How many laps out will he go for it?

Preamble