Birmingham welcomes the 2022 Commonwealth games in July and the streets of the city will play host to the Cycling Road Race.
Wales’ Geraint Thomas famously won gold in 2014 to end Australia’s stronghold on the event. However, England’s last win in the race dates all the way back to 1986 where Paul Curran took home gold in Edinburgh.
The Games will commence on July 28 before the conclusion on Monday, August 8. It has been said that over 5,000 participants will be battling it out across the different sports to write their own piece of history in the Commonwealth Games.
Australia finished first four years ago on the gold coast. But England will be looking to make home advantage count and build on their second-place finish from 2018.
The Road Race will take place on the penultimate day of the games, at 8am, and the cyclists will have to overcome each different terrain around Warwick with the men competing across 10 laps and 160km (99 miles) with the women racing out over 112km (69.5 miles), seven laps of the 16km course.
What is the Cycling Road Race route?
The start of the 16km course will commence on Myton Road, outside Myton Field, where it will then head.
Cyclists will go over the River Avon, with a view of Warwick Castle and St Nicholas Park, towards Warwick town centre, before taking an immediate left turn onto Jury Street (A429), past the Collegiate Church of St Marys on the right, Warwick Town Council’s offices, and onto Warwick High Street, with the Lord Leycester Hospital on the right.
The course follows this road until a right turn onto Shakespeare Avenue and then a left turn onto Hampton Road (A4189), opposite Warwick Race Course. The cyclists then head out towards Hampton on the Hill and the rural section of the course.
The athletes will then pass through the village of Hampton on the Hill. They will continue through Old Budbrooke Road, Church Lane and Ugly Bridge Road, before a right turn to join the Birmingham Road (A4177), where they will then head back towards Warwick.
Racers will continue on Birmingham Road (A425) via Priory Road to Coten End, Emscote Road and Warwick New Road before turning into Princes Drive.
They will pass Victoria Park, in Royal Leamington Spa until a right turn at the roundabout onto Myton Road before they will then embark on the final run into the finish, after 10 laps for the Men’s race and seven for the Women’s, along Myton Road, before a long straight finish outside Warwick School and Myton Fields.
Source: Stephen Killen
