Giorgia Bronzini rode to her second consecutive World Road
Championship, while Marianne Vos had to settle for second yet again.
Bronzini and her Italian team timed the sprint to perfection,
as she launched herself off the front and beat Vos by a mere half a wheel. Vos
ran out of road, as she chased the defending champion, and had to settle for
her fifth silver medal in a row. The Dutch rider tried to move out from behind
the bunch, but Teutenberg was also beginning her sprint and momentarily blocked
her. This is now Italy’s fourth women’s title in five years, only interrupted
by Nicole Cooke in Verese.
Teutenberg’s attack faded towards the line and she was passed
by Vos, but still managed to hold off Cooke. It looked like it was going to be
an exact repeat of the podium in Geelong, but Cooke timed it slightly wrong and
couldn’t catch up with the German. Her teammate Lizzie Armitstead was, for many,
one of the pre race favourites, but she could only manage seventh.
While most of the race was pretty docile, with the women
taking the first few laps of Copenhagen easy, a few crashes at the end cause problems
for some hopefuls. Linda Villumsen was caught up with a crash on the final lap,
which pulled her out of contention. The Kiwi was the only rider from New
Zealand and wanted to add another medal to her time-trial silver.
It took Clara Hughes to light the touch paper, with in the
peloton, when she made a 44 second break, with 2 laps to go. Despite a lead of
less than a minute, Hughes managed to stay ahead until 3km to go. Canada was
one of the big favourites going in to the race, with a pretty strong team, but
Joelle Numainville was their top performer in 12th.
It is unlikely we will see a repeat of last year’s podium in
the men’s event, tomorrow, with some top sprinters eyeing up the prize.
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