UCI Road World Championships 1946

The 1946 UCI Road World Championships took place on September 1st in Zurich ( Switzerland ).

Preliminary remark

These road world championships were the first after a seven-year break. The last world championships took place in 1938, as the competitions planned in Varese in 1939 had not been held due to the outbreak of World War II . There were no world championships during the war. Switzerland was chosen in 1946 because it was neutral and least affected by the war. There were no German drivers at the start as there was no national association at that time.

Racing action

The circular course in Zurich for the professionals was 270 kilometers long. There were 32 athletes at the start, of which only 17 made it to the finish. The 33-year-old Swiss local hero Hans Knecht , who had already become amateur world champion in 1938 , won in the pouring rain . This was preceded by a breakaway attempt by a group of three with Knecht and the two Belgians Marcel Kint and Rik Van Steenbergen . On the last climb, the Swiss could hang out his two companions. Van Steenbergen later admitted to underestimating Knecht. Knecht drove an hourly average of 36.1 km / h. In addition, there were violent arguments in the Belgian team, as they were supposed to drive for Kint. Two other favorites among the professionals were unlucky on the way: Gino Bartali crashed on lap 12, and Fausto Coppi had a defect that cost him five minutes because a commissioner had forbidden him to change bikes.

In the amateurs, which had to cover 189 kilometers, the 24-year-old Frenchman Henry Aubry won . He needed 5:21:41 hours, which is an average of 35.3 km / h.

Results

Professionals (270 km)
space	athlete	country	time
1	Hans Knecht	SUI	7:24:28 h
2	Marcel Kint	BEL	+ 0:10 min
3	Rik Van Steenbergen	BEL	+ 0:59 min
4th	Mario Ricci	ITA	+ 1:46 min
5	Gerrit Schulte	NED	+ 2:42 min
6th	Jean churches	LUX	+ 2:42 min
7th	Josef Bintner	LUX	+ 4:47 min
8th	Adolfo Leoni	ITA	+ 4:47 min
9	Guy Lapébie	FRA	+ 6:55 min
10	Mathias Clemens	LUX	+ 6:55 min
11	Lucien Teisseire	FRA	+ 8:38 min
12	Gino Bartali	ITA	+ 9:53 min
13	Émile Masson junior	BEL	+ 10:08 min
14th	Albéric Schotte	BEL	+ 10:17 min
15th	Willy Kern	SUI	+ 10:43 min
16	Josef Wagner	SUI	+ 11:49 min
17th	Joaquín Olmos	ESP	+ 17:37 min

Amateurs (189 km)
space	athlete	country	time
1	Henry Aubry	FRA	5:21:41 h
2	Ernst Stettler	CHE	unknown
3	Henri Van Kerckhove	BEL	unknown

Web links

• Results professionals at radsport-seite.de
• Results amateurs at radsportseiten.net
• Portrait of the amateur world champion at radsportseiten.net

literature

• Helmer Boelsen : The history of the cycling world championship , Bielefeld 2007, p. 44, ISBN 978-3-936973-33-4

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Spel van list en bedrog on retro.nrc.nl , accessed on April 28, 2011 (Dutch)

See also

• UCI Track World Championships 1946