World Championships 2025: Tom Dumoulin Explores ‘Extremely Tough’ Course with WielerFlits and Draws Just One Conclusion
Maxim Horssels
The World Championship road race course in Kigali next Sunday looks tough. And it is. Tom Dumoulin experienced it firsthand. The former Giro d’Italia winner and 2017 time trial world champion spent last week in Rwanda with WielerFlits for a special report in RIDE Magazine’s Winter Guide. Dumoulin took the opportunity to explore the World Championship course and shares his findings.
“Really very tough,” are the first words Dumoulin uses to sum up the World Championship. “It’s really challenging. It’s basically climb after climb after climb. You hardly get any rest. Because the descents are also quite wide and straight. So you’re back down very quickly. And then right away at the next climb. […] It’s good that they only do the Mur of Kigali once (only in the men’s race, ed.). That one is really tough, although I would have liked it if that climb was positioned deeper into the finale. It’s a nice selector.”
photo: Maxim Horssels/WielerFlits
Especially the cobbled climb – the Côte de Kimihurura (1.3 kilometers at 6.3%) – stands out to Dumoulin. In the video, he shares a nice anecdote about his travel companion Bram Tankink. “It’s going to be a brutally hard course, but I do think it’s very beautiful,” he assesses. “The roads are super smooth, except for those cobbles – but of course that adds something. That’s a very tricky climb, just before the finish. That’s where it will completely break apart. After that, it’s a bit flat for a while and then the last kilometer basically only goes uphill.”
The conclusion of the 34-year-old former world-class rider – who himself finished fourth on the equally brutal course in Innsbruck, 2018 – is simple. “The last three to four kilometers of the course are almost exclusively uphill. So it really will be a good climber… the best rider will definitely win here. Normally, I can’t think of any other name than Tadej Pogačar,” he says about the defending champion in Kigali, Rwanda.
