When the world road championships last came to Varese, Italy, in 1951, an estimated 1.5 million fans thronged the hilly course north of the city and Swiss rider Ferdi Kubler pulled off a stunning victory. The tifosi came to see their national heroes Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali, but a fever prevented Coppi from starting and Bartali had to play the team game when three of his teammates got into the winning eight-man break.

It should have been a simple task for the fastest of the three Italians, Fiorenzo Magni, the three-time Tour of Flanders winner and then reigning Giro d’Italia champ, to take the world title. But internal jealousies intervened and it was the ebullient Kubler, who’d been out front all day in the eight-and-a-half-hour, 295km race, who took the final sprint, winning so clearly that he even had time to bend down and loosen his right toe strap before crossing the line. The Italians Magni and Antonio Bevilacqua took the minor medals.

If history means anything then this Sunday’s 75th edition of the elite/pro men’s road race championship will supply another surprise. It’s unlikely that the number of spectators will be as huge as 57 years ago — mainly because Europeans can now watch the race live on television — but just as Italians Coppi, Bartali and Magni were the favorites back then so their compatriots Paolo Bettini, Damiano Cunego and Davide Rebellin are the crowd favorites right now.

It’s also possible that all three will make it into the winning break (maybe eight strong again?) and that a “Kubler” will come through and upset the home country’s party. There are perhaps a dozen contenders who could do just that and shock the world. But first of all, let’s look at the circuit that will be used for this weekend’s three road races by the under-23 men on Friday, elite women on Saturday and elite men on Sunday.

ROAD COURSE: Favors the all-arounder

Unlike the 1951 course that was almost the same as the 25km loop used this Wednesday in the women’s time trial and climbed to the village of Brinzio, northwest of historic Varese, this year’s 17.35km road race circuit crisscrosses and circumnavigates the hills and neighborhoods of the city itself. The elite men’s race covers 15 laps for a total of 260.25km with 11,916 feet (3,632 meters) of actual climbing, the under-23s race 10 laps (173.35km), and the elite women eight laps (138.8km).

There are two hills each lap. The first, beginning just 500 meters from the start in the city’s hippodrome, is a winding 1.15km slope at 6.5 percent through the Montello neighborhood of gated homes and manicured trees; the other, the Salita del Ronchi, opens with three steep hairpin turns through grassy fields above Lago di Varese before heading into the city for a total 3.13km of climbing at 4.5 percent (with a 11-percent maximum pitch), summiting 3.5km before the finish line.

In between the two climbs is a sharp descent on narrow residential streets followed by a flat zigzag route through the city and a gradual, fast downhill to the northern side of Varese’s lake. Then, following the Ronchi climb, the course heads through the heart of the 100,000-popuation city, between grand Renaissance-style buildings and formal parks, before turning north on wide modern streets. After a left turn inside the final kilometer (which is marked by a sign used at the 1951 worlds!), there’s a gradual climb to the hippodrome entrance and the straight, flat sprint to the line.

It’s a course that doesn’t favor climbers or sprinters, but as with the horse races that normally take place here, the winners of the elite men’s, elite women’s and under-23 men’s championships will all have to gamble to succeed.

UNDER 23 MEN: Return of the Italians?

Through the 1990s, the Italians dominated the espoirs category at the world road championships, sometimes claiming all three medals — as they did at Valkenberg in 1998 when the 1-2-3 was Ivan Basso, Rinaldo Nocentini and Danilo Di Luca. Incredibly, since 2002 when sprinter Francesco Chicchi won the world U23 road title on the flat Zolder circuit, not one medal has gone to Italy. And, last year, no Italian even placed in the top 10!

Given the overall strength of Italian cycling and the law of averages, an Italian should win Friday’s race — especially after Adriano Malori took Tuesday’s U23 TT title so brilliantly. Malori’s time-trial victory was fairly predictable, but there are at least a couple of dozen riders who could come out on top in the road race. The Italian espoirs with the best current form are Damiano Caruso, Salvatore Mancuso, Angelo Pagani and Simone Ponzi.

The home country’s hottest competition should come from the riders who are fresh off this month’s Tour de l’Avenir, the U23s’ Tour de France. Top of this list is the overall winner Jan Bakelants, a 22-year-old Belgian who excels in long, hilly single-day races — like the one on Friday. Other Avenir veterans who could medal in Varese are runner-up Rui Costa of Portugal, stage winner Ricardo Van der Velde of the Netherlands and Marcel Wyss of Switzerland — who placed fourth in Tuesday’s TT championship.

The top two Americans at the Avenir, Tejay Van Garderen and Peter Stetina, also have a chance to shine on Friday — but one-day races are not their specialty.

Of the English-speaking teams, the better chances lie with two men who medaled at Stuttgart one year ago: Australia’s silver medalist Wesley Sulzberger and Great Britain’s bronze medalist Jonny Bellis. Bellis rode the recent Tour of Britain as a stagiaire with the CSC-Saxo Bank team; he will likely play a support role in Varese to on-form teammate Ben Swift, who has had two wins in Italy this year and last Sunday placed second to Ponzi (and ahead of Pagani) at the Giro del Canavese in northwest Italy.

That same day, in northern France, Australia’s Sulzberger placed second to French pro William Bonnet in the challenging GP d’Isbergues. Also in the eight-man break at that French Cup race was French espoir Cyril Gautier — who scored a solo win at this year’s European U23 road championship.

Others who could get in to the winning break on Friday include Irish national champion Daniel Martin (who was fourth in the recent Tour of Britain), South Africa’s John-Lee Augustyn (who had a spectacular crash descending the Cime de la Bonette at this year’s Tour de France) and Ukraine’s Vitaliy Buts (who has had a string of victories in Italy this year and just signed for ProTour team, Lampre).

WOMEN: Arndt, Cooke, Vos battle is likely

At the Beijing Olympics, Great Britain’s Nicole Cooke garnered more mainstream coverage for her emotional road race victory than the elite men’s gold medalists. And she remains motivated to repeat her triumph in Varese — and become the first British woman to win this title since Mandy Jones in 1982. Riding on the wave of her Olympic breakthrough, Cooke is the favorite to win her first world senior road race title, to go with the gold she won as a junior in Plouay eight years ago. In the senior ranks, she has twice placed third at the worlds (in 2002 and 2006), and second (in 2005).

Cooke is suited perfectly to the eight laps of the Varese circuit, but more important is the fact that she now has her year-round British Halfords-Bikehut teammates Emma Pooley and Sharon Laws to support her. In Cooke’s last tilt at the worlds, at Salzburg in 2006, she was the most aggressive rider but her impressive attacks were repeatedly nullified by the much stronger teams from the Netherlands, Germany and Italy — and the Dutch phenom Marianne Vos took the eventual group sprint.

Vos failed to retain her title last year in Stuttgart, where the Italians played a smart tactical race to put Marta Bastianelli into the winner’s circle. Bastianelli is currently challenging an anti-doping ban for a drug that she claims was an “unknown” ingredient of a weight-reducing supplement, so she will not be defending her title.

Expect the home country’s other strong contenders, Fabiana Luperini, Tatiana Guderzo, Noemi Cantele (who comes from Varese) and Georgia Bronzini (third last year), to be aggressive, as will the teams from Sweden (with two-time world champ Suzanne Ljungskog, Olympic silver medalist Emma Johansson and the on-form Monica Voller) and Germany (former champ Judith Arndt, Trixi Worrack, Luisa Keller and Charlotte Becker).

Of the Americans, Amber Neben is best suited to the hilly course and has an outside chance of getting her second gold medal of the week. But the race will no doubt come down to a small group sprint that should favor Vos, Cooke or Arndt, perhaps with earlier challenges from the Italians and Swedes.

ELITE MEN: Bettini, Freire pursue historic goals

Just like Tiger Woods has the ability to focus on — and generally win — golf’s major tournaments so Paolo Bettini has developed an uncanny knack for getting himself into the best form for cycling’s key single-day races. With his back-to-back world titles, Olympic gold medal in Athens, multiple European classic wins (notably at the Tour of Lombardy and Liège-Bastogne-Liège), and stage wins at the three grand tours, the Italian has been a dominant force for the past decade.

Now, Bettini has a rare opportunity to permanently stamp his authority on the sport’s history by winning a third consecutive rainbow jersey. No one has ever done a threepeat in the road race, though his biggest rival Oscar Freire of Spain could upstage him should he win on Sunday and take a record fourth rainbow jersey — after his victories in 2004 (Verona), 2001 (Lisbon) and 1999 (also in Verona).

Compared with the recent Olympic road race in Beijing, there will be much different dynamics at work in Varese. Not only is the worlds’ road race significantly longer (260km compared with 245km), but the top 10 nations have nine riders instead of only five. Had that been the case in Beijing, the Italians would not have had to rely on just Rebellin to contest the gold while Bettini passively marked his main pre-race rival Alejandro Valverde of Spain; and the U.S. team would not have had to expend Dave Zabriskie and Jason McCarthy in an early chase, because other teammates would have been able to share their duties. So expect to see teamwork being a much stronger factor in Varese.

Dark horses rarely come through in the world championships, so expect the main race in Varese on September 28 to come down to a sprint between a small group of favorites. Bettini, Freire or Valverde have the best chance of winning but don’t rule out another surprise like Kubler 57 years ago.

(Look for a more detailed look at the top nations and their potential winners on Saturday after the final list of starters is confirmed.)