With no real contenders for the elite men's road race at this year's World Championships in Yorkshire, the U.S. contingent will be looking to break and stay under the radar. [Chad Haga (Team Sunweb), Alex Howes, Lawson Craddock (both EF Education First), and Nielson Powles (Jumbo-Visma) were selected.

Howes is the current national road champion and has the most experience at the World Championships.

For Haga, this has already been a long season, but as he told Cycling News at the recent Tour of Britain, he still has plenty of gas left in the tank for the last big event.

The 31-year-old's biggest goal is the time trial. At this year's Giro d'Italia, he rode brilliantly in Verona on stage 21 to take the final individual overall win. At the World Championships, he has his sights set on a top-10 finish.

"I'm really looking forward to it. It has been my goal for a long time to be selected for the World Championships, especially in the time trial. I've had a good year, so I'm happy to be selected," Haga told Cycling News.

A top-10 finish in the Yorkshire time trial would increase his chances of qualifying for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

"For the national team, there is an incentive to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics. A top 10 finish would help that, but I would aim for top 10 or better. A perfect day might be possible."

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As for the road race, the Americans will have no shortage of motivation, with Haga likely to patrol the early moves and support Howes in the second half of the race.

"We haven't discussed it in detail yet, but I'm sure we'll be looking for a breakaway or supporting a good finisher like Alex Howes. We haven't seen the course yet, though, so we need to do some research and recon."

"There is no prominent leader, so it will be an even spread of opportunistic riders. We will just race on our own bikes. We don't have any leading riders and we are a small team, so we have to use our energy wisely. Certainly, going into the World Championships, we are not a standout. All eyes will be on us, especially Belgium, France, and the Netherlands.

In terms of trade teams, Haga loses Tom Dumoulin, who has been the leader of Team Sunweb for the last few years, and the Dutchman will move to Jumbo Visma in the winter.

The move leaves the team without a Grand Tour leader option, but Haga believes his role will remain largely the same in 2020. He will continue to ride as a superdomestique, but Dumoulin's departure may give the American a handful of individual chances in time trials. Of course, such plans will need to be discussed in the off-season, but Haga's down-to-earth views and thinking since the decision to move on from Dumoulin will no doubt continue to be an asset to a team that is transitioning to something else.

"We haven't talked about specifics. There may be an opportunity to focus more on time trials, but it won't be a major role change. I will just be supporting another rider," Haga told Cycling News.

"Tom is a great competitor. I enjoyed racing with him, even though I missed out on results and luck this year. I'm sad to see him go

[30] "But I think I've almost found my role. Just trying to improve in it and move more and more later in the race in terms of where and when I can support the other racers," he said.