UCI Gravel World Series underway with Schönberger and Borghesi wins in Wörthersee

A brand new occasion opened up the racing for 2024 within the UCI Gravel World Series, with 21-year-old Italian gravel champion Giada Borghesi (BTC City Ljubljana) and Austrian Sebastian Schönberger (Team Felt Felbermayr) claiming the victories at Wörthersee Gravel Race.

Borghesi, who completed eighth within the European Gravel Championships final 12 months, crossed the road in 4:28:36, simply 4 seconds forward of Geerike Schreurs (Specialized – SD Worx Protime), who lately made the swap from soigneur to full-time gravel racer. Unbound winner Carolin Schiff (Canyon CLLCTV) completed third within the elite girls’s class. 

Schönberger, who was final 12 months racing with Human Powered Health on the highway and got here tenth within the UCI Gravel World Championships, gained the boys’s elite race by crossing the road in 4:00:23, 27 seconds forward of the 2023 Traka 200 winner Paul Voß (Autsaid). Belgian rider Daan Soete (Deschacht Hens Maes CX) got here third.

The race in southern Austria was held on a course put collectively by Johnny Hoogerland, operating over 144km and delivering 1680 metres of altitude achieve for the elite riders. The elite class included three loops of the circuit with lake views, every with slightly below half unpaved roads and with two strong gravel climbs. The offered out race with 1200 entrants throughout the classes.

The elite fields included a bunch of high riders from the gravel world and past, with these on the beginning record together with Tessa Neefjes, Jade Treffeisen, Svenja Betz, Ivar Slik, Jasper Ockeloen, Nicholas Roche, Jan Bakelants, Petr Vakoc, Mattia De Marchi and Niki Terpstra.

The occasion was the primary race of the UCI Gravel World Series races in 2024, although the October 2023 European Championships and Beechworth Gravelista spherical in Australia of the UCI sequence additionally act as qualifying rounds for the 2024 UCI Gravel World Championships in Belgium.

There are 25 qualifying races on the present 2024 schedule for the Gravel World Series, with Worthersee signalling the start of a concentrated block of sequence rounds. La  Indomable in Spain, Giro Sardegna Gravel in Italy, the Swartberg 100 in South Africa, Highlands Gravel Classic within the United States and Gravel Fondo Limburg within the Netherlands all happen by April. 

Results