Marcel Kittel does not want to waste too much energy discussing his and Andre Greipel’s role in the World Championships Road Race at the UCI Road World Championships Doha 2016. After a lot of debate, both sprinters were selected to the six-men German team, running the risk of having two captains on one ship.
“It’s an open race and we’ll find a solution to that. It’s even good for the team to have several options, you never know what’s going to happen,” Kittel says.
“We’re not the only team with more than one sprinter. France have (Nacer) Bouhanni and (Arnaud) Démare, Italy have (Giacomo) Nizzolo and (Elia) Vivani.”

Six-men squad
Having only six riders whereas the first 10 nations of the UCI World Ranking are allowed to enter nine riders in the road race, makes things more difficult for the Germans.
Kittel: “We will not be in a position to control the race. We’ll just have to see how the conditions are when we leave the hotel on Sunday, what the temperature’s like and how much wind there will be. If it’s a windy day you need to be up front. That’s a struggle, whether you have nine men or six.”  

Help each other
Not racing against each other will be key for the Germans.
“We’re here as a team, to help each other. This is not the easiest thing to discuss in detail and it’s probably not very smart to discuss everything in detail beforehand. We may not even be there, when a group of fifteen riders is going to the finish. Let’s first make sure we’re in a position to ride for the title, instead of talking about what we will do once we’re there.”
Three or four bottles of
Water per hour
Apart from the wind, the temperature will be a factor with which all riders have to deal. Sitting comfortably in the air-conditioned Etixx-QuickStep team hotel, Kittel looks back upon the training rides he already did in the desert.
“It was quite ok, at least it was dry, hot but dry. In these conditions you need to drink at least three or four bottles of water per hour. I wonder how the UCI are going to make sure that there will be enough water available during the race, especially when the bunch breaks up in echelons. The heat will have a huge impact. The race will be very demanding and after 257 kilometres everyone is almost equally fast, because everyone will be equally tired.”