The UCI Road World Championships Elite Women's Road Race is a one-day event for professional cyclists that takes place annually. The winner is considered the World Cycling Champion (or World Road Cycling Champion) and earns the right to wear the Rainbow Jersey for a full year in road race or stage events. The event is a single 'mass start' road race with the winner being the first across the line at the completion of the full race distance. The road race is contested by riders organized by national cycling teams as opposed to commercially sponsored or trade teams, which is the standard in professional cycling.
History
The UCI Road World Championships for women made its debut in Reims, France in 1958. Due to the Summer Olympics, the Road World Championships were not held in 1984, 1988 and 1992.
Until about 1990, the race varied in length from a low of 46.6 km in 1966 to around 72 km (30 to 50 miles). From 1991, the race length began to gradually increase, first to 79 km (Stuttgart, Germany), and then to over 100 km in 1996 (Lugano, Switzerland). Since 2010, the course has varied in length between 130 kilometres (81 mi) and 160 kilometres (99 mi).
The event can be held over either a relatively flat course which favors cycling sprinters or over a hilly course which favors more of a climbing specialist or all-round type of cyclist. It usually involves laps of a circuit, albeit with fewer laps than the Elite Men's race.
From 2022 to 2024, competitors in this race under the age of 23 at the end of the previous year were also competing for honours in their own classification.
Historically, European nations have dominated this event.
