The first running of these annual Championships in the Middle East has prompted cycling’s world governing body to make daily assessments of temperatures which are expected to rise towards 40 degrees centigrade despite the relatively late time of year. They have reserved the option of reducing circuits raced or, in the case of the concluding men’s elite road race, the 15 kilometre stretch through the desert before the field begins looping around the Pearl Island on the edge of the city.

Annemiek van Vleuten, who arrived at the Dutch team base in Oman on Tuesday, has reported that she drank five bottles of water in three hours during her first training ride in temperatures that were more than 40 degrees.

"I am not someone who suffers particularly from the heat but this is at another level and I am very happy to have time to acclimatise," she said.

The climatic challenge is the same for men and women assembling for these eight-day Championships, and the rewards are too thanks to the decision by the UCI in June to bring the team time trial events - which open the programme today - into line with all the other races in terms of prize money.

In 2015, the men’s team champions took home €33,333 (£30,000/$37,300), with prize money going down to €4,166 (£3,700/$4,700) for the fifth place team. In comparison, the women’s champions were awarded €10,666 (£9,600/$12,000), down to €1,666 (£1,500/$1,800) for the team finishing fifth. This year men and women will get the same pay structure as the men had last year.

For women’s road racing, this marks another turn of the pedal on a journey that has already covered much ground but which still involves a long and winding road ahead.

The women’s events in Doha, culminating in Saturday’s (October 15) elite women’s road race over 134.5km, appear likely to produce a spectacle worthy of rounding off a landmark year in which the women’s WorldTour replaced and expanded the women’s World Cup which had been in place since 1998.

In the elite women’s race, The Netherlands have the look of favourites given the presence of Olympic champion Anna van der Breggen and London 2012 gold medallist Marianne Vos in their ranks, as well as gifted sprinter Ellen Van Dijk and Kirsten Wild, a four-times winner of the women’s Tour of Qatar.

Britain’s Lizzie Deignan - nee Armitstead - is expected to put up a strong defence of the title she won in Richmond, Virginia last year, while Australian sprinter Chloe Hosking and former double UCI world champion Giorgia Bronzini of Italy are also among the favourites.

There is no more passionate advocate of the new and rapidly changing landscape of women’s road cycling than Tracey Gaudry, a member of Australia’s road racing team at the 1996 and 2000 Olympics, who was elected in 2013 - shortly after Brian Cookson became UCI President - as one of the governing body's three vice-presidents, thus becoming the first woman to hold this position.

Gaudry, who is also President of the UCI Women’s Commission, has a huge sense of expectation about the forthcoming Championships.

On the eve of the first events, she told insidethegames: "The UCI Road World Championships are the climax of the season, and the rainbow jersey is really the holy grail for any elite rider. The Worlds, with their week-long narrative and worldwide exposure are for all stakeholders - riders, teams, organisers, broadcasters and partners - a unique showcase benefiting our series and our discipline.

“And after a mountainous road circuit at Rio 2016, the UCI Road World Championships will field national teams with a very different composition and the sprinters coming to the fore.

"We’re working with the teams to bring out the stories and personalities of the riders - the actors -  like this year’s overall UCI women’s WorldTour winner Megan Guarnier.

"The Women’s WorldTour was a vision we established three years ago with the new administration of the UCI. The Women’s World Cup was a strong series, however, its narrative was limited to ten to 14 one day races over a whole season, which was excellent, but we wanted to create a stronger platform for world class organisers, teams, riders, sponsors and the media.

"The inaugural UCI Women’s WorldTour presented 17 events comprising 13 one day races and four stage races from March to September, staged in nine countries on three continents. Fans enjoyed an exciting narrative from the spring Classics early in the season, to exciting stage races on three continents, to the Monument races alongside a number of men’s UCI WorldTour events.

"We are building something steadily but strongly. Next year, we will strengthen the events platform, retaining the 2016 UCI Women’s WorldTour events and adding new and outstanding events that we can’t wait to announce next week.

"The season is well coordinated with regional blocks of races and no clashes to maximise opportunities for UCI women’s teams to compete in WorldTour events right across the season. The level of coverage for all UCI Women’s WorldTour events and the series on the whole will continue to improve. We’re strengthening the branding so every event and sponsor benefits from being a vital part of the UCI Women’s WorldTour.

"With a really strong event platform, we will be concurrently progressing our work with UCI women’s teams. We are currently drafting new guidelines for Women’s WorldTour teams called the cahier des charges, that will come into effect in 2018. They will establish a new baseline for women’s professional teams including minimum qualifications of team staff, increased anti-doping requirements, mandatory provisions for riders and more. We are involving the teams and organisers in this important piece of work including at the Women’s WorldTour seminar in December."

Although the details of the expanded 2017 women’s WorldTour have not yet been released, it is clear that the additions will be significant.

"We’ve been very careful about being very ambitious and progressive, creating a UCI Women’s WorldTour for the first time with 17 races and 35 days of racing - more than tripling the number of competition days since the 2015 Women’s World Cup - in the first year," Gaudry said.

"The great news is that there are more applications for next year and we will add four spectacular events to the UCI Women’s WorldTour. In Doha, we will disclose the new calendar and it will live up to expectations."

While there may be equality in prize money at the UCI World Road Championships, the big picture shows that men’s and women’s road racing is far from being equal in terms of rewards or exposure.

In her column for BBC Sport as part of Women’s Sport Week, Britain’s quadruple Olympic track cycling champion Laura Kenny - nee Trott - wrote: "We get equal prize money and there are equal events. At the London Olympics in 2012, it was the first time both the men's and the women's track schedules were exactly the same and we had the same television air time.

"But on the road the situation is a lot different, and it's here progress still needs to be made.

"My older sister Emma was a pro cyclist but it was difficult for her to make money as a road rider, especially as she was a domestique and not a lead rider.

"The sport's world governing body, the UCI, has rules for minimum wages for men - a Pro Tour rider, for example, is guaranteed at least £30,000 ($37,000/€33,000) a year.

"In women's cycling there is no minimum wage and Emma didn't get paid thousands like her male counterparts did. She did it because she loved it.

"It wasn't about the money for her. She loved the lifestyle, she loved living in Belgium and travelling around with the girls.

"But there came a point where she wasn't actually enjoying it anymore so she moved on and away from it and is now a personal trainer and cycling coach in New Zealand.

"Women's road cycling needs more television exposure and it is starting to go in the right direction.

"It is great you can watch the road races at the Olympics and World Championships on television. The Grand Tours are also helping to grow women's cycling too with the Tour de France, for example, showcasing a one-day women's stage. But there is still lots to do."

Last year, Italian Elisa Longo Borghini called for better TV coverage and prize money for women’s road races after receiving just €1,218 (£1,100/$1,300) for winning the Tour of Flanders.

"The prize money is the same in every World Cup race, 1,218 euros," Borghini said, before asking: "Is it right in 2015 that a woman gets the same amount as a man who finishes 20th? That can’t be right."

Right or not, winners of women’s one-day races on the WorldTour were still rewarded at the same level, with men’s winners getting €7,515 (£6,700/$8,400). In stage races this year, male winners of stages got €3,615 (£3,200/$4,000) and female stage winners €537 (£480//$600).

A UCI spokesman told insidethegames: "We’re determined to improve riders’ working conditions while creating an environment that encourages investment in women’s road cycling. It’s a topic that is on the agenda of the discussions with our stakeholders within our working groups and under the lead of the UCI Women’s Commission."

Longo Borghini made the point that TV coverage could be a key area to advance the cause of women’s road racing.

"Women’s cycling is growing," she told Gazzetta dello Sport. "It’s stepped up a level, there’s no doubt about that. But the problem of television coverage is the first thing to sort out because it could help attract new sponsors."

The 23-year-old added to Cycling News: "We know how to put on a show. People should come to our races or watch them on television. Trust me, women don’t disappoint."

While the UCI has worked to improve the coverage of the women’s World Cup and other major races, Longo Borghini’s win at the Tour of Flanders was virtually ignored by Belgian television that produced the live images from the men’s Tour of Flanders.

"I think that at least the last 25km of World Cup races should be shown live," she argued.

"I think it’s better to see the ten best women attack each other than watching a men’s early break that goes at 50 kilometres an hour and a peloton that goes at 40 kilometres an hour with 150km still to race."

In an interview on the UCI website, Gaudry spoke with eloquence and enthusiasm about the growing profile of the women’s WorldTour. "The organisers have benefited from being part of the WorldTour, the teams, the athletes," she said. "New sponsors are coming into the frame.

"The riders as part of a team now have a whole-of-season reason for being. They are professional athletes. They train all year round and so now their whole season is bound by competitions throughout the year, high points, low points.

"When you look at the courses, the terrain, the cobbles, the hills, the wind, the drama that goes around competing in a very uncontrolled environment, that is the beauty of road cycling, but also what women bring with them, we want their personalities to come to the fore, not just when they are winning.

"The biggest lesson for us is how strong the appetite is to follow women’s cycling. The demand is very, very high."

She told insidethegames that part of that demand had been manifested on social media.

"With the launch of the UCI Women’s WorldTour, women’s cycling has emerged more exposed on social media platforms," she said.

"While all of the stakeholders are making great efforts to promote this growing discipline, we’ve worked on building the profile of women’s cycling by creating a media and information hub, a one-stop shop, with the aim to build a new fan-base. There are Women’s and UCI Women’s WorldTour pages on the UCI’s website, with links to organisers' websites, the latest videos, news and a social media feed displaying every update with the hashtag #UCIWWT.

"The Twitter account @UCIWomensCycling continues to grow and has now 19,000 followers, and with close to 29,000 followers the UCI Women’s Cycling Instagram account has tripled its fan-base in just six months.

"With our partner IMG, we have produced more than 140 minutes of UCI Women’s WorldTour content, from short highlight packages to behind-the-scenes reports and athlete features, reaching more than 18 million viewers globally through their online InCycle platform and in-flight channels.

"As a former professional bike racer myself, I know very well that a strong and sustainable environment for the athletes will transform the way women racers consider their careers as an elite athlete.

"Road cycling is not only a sport that requires immense courage, tenaciousness and resilience, in the top echelon it’s a full-time vocation. It’s an important part of our mission to build sustainability with each of the components of the system - the teams, the organisers, and the administration - and the system as a whole. 

"We have a strong administration at UCI that is dedicated to women’s cycling across all disciplines with all programmes supervised by women’s cycling coordinator Morgane Gaultier, and championed by deputy director general Amina Lanaya.

"We have invested significantly in women’s cycling over the past three years under the Cookson administration and this will continue into 2017. We’ve worked extensively with organisers and media to strengthen the platform, the narrative and the brand.

"We know we have much more work to do, and we are embracing the next stage.

"The Women’s WorldTour seminar in December is an important milestone where the teams will be able to provide input and feedback about the new baseline being prepared. And by the middle of next year the scene will be set for the UCI women’s teams for the 2018 season.

"Meanwhile we are offering Directeur Sportif Scholarships to women for the second year in a row to help advance the skills and professionalism of women working in cycling and in particular those working with women’s UCI teams.

"When we announce the 2017 calendar in less than a week’s time, we know the teams, riders, sponsors, media and fans will be very excited - the momentum is continuing to build."