Greg Van Avermaet is one of cycling’s great nearly men, completing and achieving great results in many great ne-day races, but never getting the win. His only big one-day win is in an edition of Paris-Tours, but he does have stage wins in the Vuelta and Tour.

But the Belgian has told Cyclingnews that he would value a win in the Worlds Road Race over any single one-day race on the WorldTour.

"Winning a big Classic like San Remo, Roubaix, Liege or the World Championships has always been my main goal, and when a classics rider can reach one of these goals then his career has been really nice.”

"But having a world title is even more special because there is a jersey involved and it can be worn the whole year. For a one-day racer like me, the World Championships is the ultimate goal."

He comes into the Worlds as part of a strong Belgian team that he co-leads along with Tom Boonen and Philippe Gilbert. He says outright leadership will be decided on the roads of Richmond.

"We will see how it goes because everyone is in pretty good shape," Van Avermaet said. "Last year we also had three leaders in Ponferrada and it worked out pretty well. We couldn't win but we were all up there.”

"This year will be a little bit the same, we have so many good riders in Belgium and it's hard to choose just one leader. It almost always is an advantage and we have a few cards to play and that will be good for us."