It’s been twenty years since an American rider won the elite men's world road race championship. In 1993 a relatively squad if promising Lance Armstrong took the title but since then no American rider has been able to force his way into the rainbow jersey.

This year Team USA is looking to reverse the trend in Florence, Italy. In order to claim the honours of the day, Team USA will field Tejay van Garderen and Chris Horner as co-leaders for the race.

While van Garderen has been in Italy since coming back to Europe after winning the USA Pro Challenge in Colorado, Vuelta a España winner Chris Horner has chosen a different approach and only arrived in Florence on Friday with a drawn-out flight from Oregon and nine hours of jetlag in his legs, but Team manager Sayers was quoted as saying that he respected Horner's decision to take his post-Vuelta weeks in the United States.

"It's hard to say how it will affect him, but Chris has a lot of experience and knows himself well," Sayers told Cyclingnews.com. "I don't second guess him. People have second-guessed his decisions [to fly back and forth from Europe] for years, but he always comes through in the clutch. He's never let me down yet. He decided to take those two weeks at home, and we were supportive of that decision."

One thing might play into the hands of the American squad: With Spain arguably the strongest team, the Italians undisputedly the most motivated, and Switzerland as the squad most united behind Fabian Cancellara, the Americans can enjoy the luxury of taking a back-seat role at let the race evolve without having to dictate the course of events. Thus, they may ponder their moves and await the right moment to pounce. One drawback, though, is the fact that only seven riders are in the American squad.

"We only have seven guys, and that makes it more difficult. The race will be plenty hard, especially if it rains as they are predicting. The team will have to work to keep the leaders safe and in position on the circuit," Sayers said.