Originally Posted by
MinnMan
I'm pretty sure that it's not entirely the country's choice. eg., if AG2R and Bahrain-Merida didn't want Bardet and Nibali to be racing just now, then those guys wouldn't be there.
No sponsor would stop their rider competing at the Worlds Road Race. They'd maybe have issues with them riding track for their country (Cavendish and Viviani both had issues with their trade teams around Rio, and you pretty much never see World Tour road pros competing at the Track Worlds any more, where the pursuit at least used to feature some of the prologue specialists), but every sponsor wants to have the rainbow jersey in their colours the following year. The men's RR stands up alongside the 5 Monuments, and they are the biggest one-day prizes in the sport, which brings me to;
Originally Posted by
onyerleft
For all the fanfare it gets, I think that the World's is a BS race. It reminds of the baseball All Stars game.
The only vague similarity with the All Stars is that riders are, for the day, teammates of riders they would normally compete against. The Worlds is as important as the World Series. A rainbow jersey is as big a deal as getting MVP in the Superbowl. Nobody on the startline tomorrow shares your view. That's why, with a few notable exceptions, the list of winners is a decent chart of all-time greats of the sport.