Ben Swift has been finalising his form before heading over to Spain to lead Great Britain at the UCI Road World Championships in Ponferrada on the 28th of September.

“I think the form must be pretty good, because I’ve always been there in the finishes after working pretty hard,” Swift explained. “It’s kind of hard to know how you feel on these roads. They’re just so heavy it’s like weight training all the time. You’re never too sure about how you feel. I’ve always come good in the last hour, so that’s quite encouraging.”

Swift has had a breakthrough year, winning a really hard stage in the Tour of the Basque Country before finishing second in RideLondon and the British Road Race. He was third in his debut Milan-Sanremo and his speed after such a hard and long race is what makes him a favourite for the Worlds.

“It’s something that I’ve had my eye on in the last couple of months,” he said of the Worlds road race. “I went and had a look at it and it is a good circuit. It all depends on how it is raced. A lot of teams aren’t going to want to bring it back to any form of sprint. Some teams are going to have to ride pretty hard from the start… On this sort of circuit it could go either way.”

Swift will not have Ian Stannard to help him after the 27 year old fractured his scaphoid on the opening stage of the Tour of Britain. However, Swift still thinks the team will be good enough to give him a shot at the Rainbow Jersey:

“We have got a really strong team and we’ve got a lot of options to play,” he told Cyclingnews. “We’ve got a lot of good riders now, a couple of years ago we didn’t have such a pool of riders to choose from. It shows that a lot of good riders are coming in form coming into this world so hopefully we should have numbers to play with.”