UCI Road World Championships 2025 favourites ranked: Pauline Ferrand-Prevot and Demi Vollering feature in magnificent seven
Published 25/09/2025 at 09:35 GMT+1
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A select group of contenders containing no out-and-out favorite should make for a fascinating and entertaining women's UCI World Championships road race at Kigali 2025. A classics-style course built for climbers narrows the field down to those who are proven winners in the biggest and hardest races - such as Demi Vollering, Pauline Ferrand-Prevot and Elisa Longo Borghini.
Highlights: Evenepoel humbles Pogacar to take TT glory
Video credit: TNT Sports
The women’s elite road race at the UCI World Championships - live on TNT Sports and discovery+ - represents something of a watershed event for women’s sport.
Longer, and containing more climbing than any previous edition, the course promises to produce more selective racing, too, with only the very strongest of the field expected to survive all 11 laps of the Kigali circuit.
The elite women will complete the same distance as the U23 men, over the same up-and-down 13.6km Kigali course as all the week’s athletes.
That means Friday ought to provide a clearer preview as to how events might unfold, and where the best opportunities and most likely threats will come.
While the men’s race presents the incumbent as clear favourite to do the double, Belgium’s two-time rainbow winner, Lotte Kopecky, has declared herself unfit to target three in a row.
The consequence could be a more open battle between her aspirant successors. No clear favourite should see no obvious hierarchy among those talented enough to dare to dream.
As well as being the elevatory hardest World Championship in history, Saturday’s battle will rank third by ascending metres of all women's races this season.
UCI Road World Championships 2025: Women's road race course profile
Image credit: From Official Website
To determine the contenders it is to those contests that we can most easily draw from, as well as Sunday’s time trial, over an unusually difficult race against the clock.
All three from the podium of the latter should again be among those vying for the medals a week later.
The winner, Marlen Reusser, has had the season of her career, emerging at the top table of women’s cycling at the age of 34, with 8 individual victories.
The silver medalist, Anna van der Breggen has returned to the sport after what is now deemed "a career break" and looks more than capable of adding to her two titles.
Her Dutch team-mate, Demi Vollering, has yet to secure an individual world title - an increasingly glaring gap in her otherwise glittering palmares.
Other riders from the TT who should make it to the business end of the road race include Australia’s Brodie Chapman (4th), France’s Juliette Labous (7th) and Cèdrine Kerbaol (13th), Norwegian Katrine Aalerud (5th), Italy’s Monica Trinca Colonel (11th), Kasia Niewiadoma of Poland (14th), Slovenian Urzka Zigart (16th), and Ruth Edwards from the USA (51st.)
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Reusser soars into the lead with stunning time trial in Rwanda
Video credit: TNT Sports
There should, however, be at least as many in the mix from those committing all their eggs to the road race basket.
No name of those stand out higher than that of Pauline Ferrand-Prevot (France) who will be looking to take a second set of road rainbows, 11 years after her first.
Not that PFP has been short of outfits to wear in the intervening period - across three different cycling disciplines, MTB, gravel and cyclo-cross, she has accumulated 15 world titles.
Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy) is another fully invested in the road race, and she can count on undivided loyalties, with her whole nation’s complement of six support riders behind her.
Unlike Switzerland. Elise Chabbey should share almost the same bill as Reusser, which means they may have to make a team car call, lest the road make it for them.
France have climber Evita Muzic waiting for them in the wings, while the Netherlands can count on Yara Kastelijn should Vollering and Van der Breggen falter.
Countries with the single card to play include Germany with Liane Lippert, New Zealand and Niamh Fisher-Black, while Denmark will back Cecilie Uttrup-Ludwig.
The host continent has one big favourite in the shape of Kim Le Court (Mauritius), though South Africa’s Ashleigh Moolman usually puts in a good showing and is no stranger to punchy climbs herself.
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‘Historic moment’ – Le Court edges Vollering in sprint finish to claim first stage win
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In all there will be 26 riders from African nations on the startline - twice as many as last year in Zurich. Four of them will be representing the host nation, with 23 year-old Xaverine Nirere of Team Amani, 35th in the ITT, their likely top finisher.
In reverse order, here’s our magnificent seven favourites. If the winner doesn’t come from this selection we’ll be enjoying hat for dinner.
7. Anna van der Breggen (Netherlands)
For once we should be able to rely on the Dutch women backing a single rider, but should Vollering falter, they couldn’t ask for a better Plan B.
For years one of 'the big two' in the sport, Van der Breggen is the most experienced of our contenders, with two of these titles to her name already.
Since returning from her short-lived 'retirement' she may not have been the rider she was, and this may not be the same sport she left, but she has been a contender on more race days than not.
Depending on how much support she provides her team leader, there’s no reason to imagine she won’t be amongst it on Saturday. Don’t be surprised if the headlines are about her "rolling back the years."
6. Kim Le Court (Mauritius)
The shining light of African cycling has broken through to the big time this year.
A strong early season showing reached its apotheosis at Liege-Bastogne-Liege Femmes, which saw her outsprint Puck Pieterse, Demi Vollering and Cedrine Kerbaol to secure her first major title.
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‘Someone needs to hit me in the face’ – Le Court in disbelief after landing maiden stage win
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That was followed by a stage win from her very next appearance at the Tour of Britain and then, in mid-summer, the 28 year-old enjoyed a triumphant week at the Tour de France Femmes.
A stage win from a select group - containing several of the riders to follow - came with the yellow jersey, which Le Court wore for three days before eventually fading on the Col de la Madeleine.
The sheer volume of climbing, similar to that day, might be what costs her on Saturday, but the up-and-down nature of its accumulation may suit her better than if it was concentrated into one long effort.
Her Mauritius national champion’s jersey bears an uncanny resemblance to the rainbows. Will she swap one for the other and become Africa’s first world champion?
5. Kasia Niewiadoma (Poland)
Without a win outside her own national championships this season, the temptation is to rule out the 2024 Tour de France champion entirely.
Our belief in the adage "form is temporary, class if permanent" being so strong is why we just can’t do it.
After years of near-misses, Niewadoma finally lived up to her promise in the months preceding and culminating in that career-defining triumph.
While her results this year have reverted to the mean, you still never know when she will pull a rabbit out of the hat.
Niewadoma isn’t the purest of climbers, but on her day she is probably the most determined of racers in the bunch. If her day turns out to fall this weekend, the rest can’t afford to let her get out of sight.
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'Look at this!' - Superb vibes in Rwanda as historic Road World Championships get underway
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4. Marlen Reusser (Switzerland)
What odds on Reusser to be the first woman to do the double since Van der Breggen in 2020? At the time of publication, the answer is 17/1.
Those are pretty generous odds considering the Swiss all-round showing of strength this season. Her average result this season is 16, which doesn’t sound like much, except when you consider that includes big bunch finishes in which she came home with the front group.
Discount those and she’s a consistent top-10 rider. From the final stage of the Tour de Suisse to the Giro d’Italia’s opening TT, Reusser went three wins out of three - almost unheard of in women’s cycling. All she has to do this weekend is make it two from two.
3. Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy)
A gastrointestinal illness forced Longo Borghini to abandon the Tour de France Femmes before the race had really got going. It was a shame because it meant fans didn’t get to see what she could do against the likes of Vollering and Ferrand-Prevot.
The Italian champion was able to show her prowess in the Giro d’Italia, however. Her strong second place on Monte Nerone - the single day of racing with more climbing than any other this season - was enough to ensure she clinched overall victory a day later by just eight seconds.
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Gigante conquers Monte Nerone as Longo Borghini takes pink on penultimate stage
Video credit: TNT Sports
That also tells us she has the chops to put out a competitive performance in Kigali on Saturday.
She should have strong support in the Azzurra, in the familiar form of trade team-mates Eleonora Gasparrini and Silvia Persico, as well as Barbara Malcotti, Soraya Paladin and recent Tour of the Ardeche winner Monica Trinca Colonel.
2. Demi Vollering (Netherlands)
Last year saw the Dutch miss out on the Worlds podium entirely for the first time in a decade.
Something disastrous would surely have to befall them for that to happen two years in a row, given a parcours that’s as close to perfectly suited to their talents as could be imagined.
Vollering will be their pocket queens, with Van der Breggen a set of solid suited connectors.
It’s not been the most settled of seasons for the younger rider, but she’s picked up a hatful of victories at her new team, FDJ-Suez.
All but one of them came in the hills of Spain, with the exception being a second Strade Bianche title in early March.
She will have been disappointed to again come second at the Tour de France, and likely even more so that so much of the talk about her centred on her personality rather than her performances.
On Saturday she has a chance to silence the critics, by letting her legs do the talking.
1. Pauline Ferrand-Prevot (France)
Having conquered the biggest stage race and most important one-day prize in the sport, even without another rainbow jersey Pauline Ferrand-Prevot’s comeback in road cycling is unquestionably complete.
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Icon of cycling: Ferrand-Prevot wins Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift at first attempt
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That’s certainly how she is approaching the World Championship road race. "I have nothing to lose at the World Championships," she recently told L’Equipe.
"It's a bonus. If I perform, it's great. If I'm not so good, it's not the end of the world. I'm going with the ambition of doing the best possible; there's no pressure."
Saturday’s race will not require the same approach as Paris-Roubaix. Nor will it make the same demands as it took to win the week-long Le Tour De France Femmes Avec Zwift .
In sheer volume, it isn’t dissimilar to stage 8 of that same event. Slightly less climbing over a longer distance shared between many more hills, but if she has the fitness to stay near the front there’s no reason to believe PFP isn’t up to the task.
She’s only competed once since securing the win on Châtel Les Portes du Soleil and it was in a race that didn’t tell us much, but winning begets winning.
It’s not quite hers to lose, but the strength of the French squad - all of whom will be at her disposal - puts her in pole position.
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Watch the UCI World Championships live on TNT Sports and discovery+.
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