WORLDS PREVIEW: Day one in Tabor - Vos under pressure!

Elite women's World Championship race starts 14.00 (CET)

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PREVIEW Elite women: Vos under pressure from Nash et al

THE defending women's World champion Marianne Vos will have to repel a very strong challenge from at least half a dozen riders threatening to steal away her crown in frozen Tabor on Saturday afternoon.

After amassing a total of seven World 'cross titles (the first in 2006), Dutchwoman Vos seems at her most vulnerable this season perhaps for the first time since her winning streak of six began in 2009.

The frozen, rutted conditions in Tabor - with potentially an increasingly slippy top surface - put US-based Czech champion Katerina Nash at the head of Vos' long list of challengers. These are the kind of conditions that can make some riders nervous and others throw caution to the wind and spring a surprise.

The Czech hosts' hopes rest with Katerina Nash in what could a close race for the medals.

Nash won - beating Vos - in Namur and Loenhout in December and also won on New Year's Day in Baal. In Zolder and Diegem, over Christmas, Vos beat Nash. The results might suggest a close battle between the two, but the unknown factor is the extent of the hamstring injury Vos has been carrying for over a month.

Injury worry

The legendary Dutchwoman admitted to the press on Friday that she is still suffering from the injury she aggravated in the Dutch Championship and which reduced her to twelfth place in Hoogerheide last weekend. Vos was due to race three times after Tabor, but has declared that after Saturday she will call a halt to her 'cross season.

This injury worry for Vos and the tricky conditions are what will be exploited by a host of other favourites in this wide-open and unpredictable race.

The favourites

At least seven women, all national champions in their seven different nations, have a genuine reason to believe that they can win this race. Alongside Vos and Nash, the others are: the winner a week ago in Hoogerheide Eva Lechner (ITA); French champion Pauline Ferrand-Prevot; American champion Katie Compton (still struggling with allergies); Belgian champion Sanne Cant; and British champion Helen Wyman.

In what could turn into a very close battle for the medals these favourites will also have to handle the outsiders such as Nikki Harris, Sophie De Boer, Sabrina Stultiens, Ellen Van Loy, Lucie Chainel-Lefevre and Caroline Mani.

With an out of sorts Vos and several evenly matched challengers, this World title could come down to who makes the fewest mistakes.

2014 result: 1 Vos; 2 Lechner; 3 Wyman.

Junior men's World Championship race starts 11.00 (CET)

BELGIUM'S Eli Iserbyt is perhaps the only clear favourite to win a World title in Tabor in any of the four races. The Belgian champion (pictured) confidently told reporters at the press briefings yesterday that he will "only be satisfied with gold."

Iserbyt has won 19 races this season and has only been beaten on one occasion – the Namur World Cup in December. His conqueror there, Swiss Johan Jacobs, should also be his biggest threat in Tabor. Iserbyt was seventh a year ago in Hoogerheide and Jacobs just beat him to the line by seven seconds. The five riders ahead of Jacobs and Iserbyt have all moved up to the Under-23 category.

There has been no new snow overnight and the course remains frozen from sub-zero overnight temperatures (close to minus seven). Things should be slippy for this first race of the 2015 World Championships and those kind of conditions can sometimes spring a surprise.