The justifiably unfair choice behind World Championships courses

It is not hard to understand why. “Every generation of sprinters should get at least one real chance at a world title,” he said to Het Laatste Nieuws. “I fear that chance will never come for me.”

For years sprinters have watched the balance tilt steadily away from them. But this time, Merlier’s concern landed on unusually fertile ground. Because in Abu Dhabi, the ground itself is literally rising.

Marca confirmed a few days later what Merlier had quietly suggested: the “small hill” he kept seeing grow year after year during the UAE Tour is no illusion. It is a planned feature, a man-made ascent built layer by layer with dune sand, compacted asphalt and reinforced slopes.

What began in 2023 as a 1.4km bump at 6% will be 2km in length by 2026. And according to Marca, the target for the 2028 World Championships is a 3.8 km climb at around 6.5%, with a final 250m touching 13%.

And that is only Al Wathba. On Hudayriyat Island, new artificial slopes already reach tens of metres high, forming a second potential circuit with ramps ranging from 4-10%. 

Whether these features will be used remains unknown, but the message is unmistakable: if Abu Dhabi wants a climb, Abu Dhabi will have one.

Sprinters had hoped that 2028 would finally bring a flat course. Instead, what looms is another selective Worlds, run in forty degree heat and fully exposed to desert winds. It feeds into the same unease Merlier voiced earlier, as he wondered whether the sport is drifting further and further away from pure sprinters.

His question feels more relevant than ever: “Are we really moving towards routes where only riders up to 70 kilos have a future, and pure sprinters disappear? That would be a shame.”

This is where the discussion moves beyond a single climb. It raises a broader question about what the rainbow jersey is meant to signify.

Is it a title for the strongest rider in the world, or simply the rider best suited to that year’s course?

Recent editions suggest a clear pattern. Since Bergen 2017, the World Championships have strongly favoured puncheurs, climbers and versatile all-rounders. In the past fifteen years, only Copenhagen 2011 and Doha 2016 offered a realistic opportunity for pure sprinters.

If the profile continues to follow the same direction every season, the title risks reflecting a specific rider type rather than the diversity of the peloton.

And that is notable, because cycling is a sport where athletes with very different body types, from 58kg climbers to 85kg sprinters, compete for the same jersey on a course that can be shaped to benefit one group more than another.

There is a simple, elegant solution available: rotate the type of Worlds course every year.

One year for sprinters.
One year for puncheurs.
One year for climbers.
One year for classics riders.

And then the cycle repeats.

When Marcel Kittel joined the Domestique Hotseat recently, he spoke frankly about where cycling actually sits today. Organisers are not just competing with other races. They are competing with other sports, streaming platforms, social media, and the entire entertainment economy.

“The Tour needs to improve their product to make it more entertaining,” he said. Hard routes, new finales, dramatic visuals. It all fits the logic of modern sport and entertainment.

He even defended the idea of reinventing the final stage of the Tour de France, painful as it was for him personally. The old Champs-Élysées sprint, he admitted, sometimes lacked tension. Montmartre did not.

But Kittel also recognised the cost of this shift. “Times have definitely changed for the pure sprinters,” he said. And he is right. 

The sport keeps moving toward riders who can climb, sprint and survive anything, while the Merlier-type sprinter gets fewer and fewer natural opportunities. The growing debate around the World Championships puts that imbalance in full view.

The Worlds is no ordinary race. It is the moment the sport steps into the shop window, a single day in which cycling must present itself to a global audience that has endless alternatives. A flat six hour race that only comes alive in the final kilometre is, in that light, a harder product to defend.

Looked at this way, the debate becomes less about sprinters versus climbers and more about what the Worlds needs in order to serve the sport. It is easier to understand, even to accept, that organisers lean more often toward selective parcours.

If the Worlds is one of cycling’s key hero moments, courses that build tension over hours rather than seconds are not just desirable. They are necessary.

Merlier may not like the direction, and his frustration is justified. Sprinters deserve their day. But the sport also has to recognise the role the Worlds plays in shaping its future, and choosing races that captivate more than just the final kilometre may be the fairest unfair choice cycling can make.