Worlds Wrap: Round-up from Innsbruck 2018

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Romain Bardet, Alejandro Valverde and Michael Woods on the podium(Image credit: Getty Images)

The 2018 UCI Road World Championships concluded on Sunday, with the elite men's road race bringing the curtain down on a week of racing in which 12 world titles were awarded.

Van der Breggen quickly reached the lead group and then dropped them before the summit. Her lead grew and grew as she descended into town the climbed the mountain again before dropping into town once more to be crowned world champion. Amanda Spratt (Australia) also rode nearly 40km alone but the pursuit lacked any real suspense and she was a distant silver medallist, while Tatiana Guderzo (Italy) rounded out the podium.

The writing was on the wall ahead of the 5km climb mid-way through the 52.5km course, as Dennis caught the European champion Jonathan Castroviejo, who'd started 90 seconds ahead. By the top he had more than a minute over the other contender, Tom Dumoulin, and the rest of the course was a formality. After a long season, Dumoulin was far from his best, and only clung onto the silver medal by a hair, with Belgium's Victor Campenaerts surpassing expectations on the climb to claim a podium finish.

He had to do it the hard way - even if it still looked easy in the end - as he crashed ahead of the first climb. Having to restart more than a minute-and-a-half down, he made his way through the fragmented field like a pro in a sportive, and once back at the front of the race he began to dictate it, his sapped legs clearly still stronger than the rest. A flurry of attacks on the penultimate climb left him with just one for company, and by the same point on the next lap he was alone. Marius Mayrhofer (Germany)) finished second and Alessandro Fancellu (Italy) third but it almost felt like they and the rest were in a different race.

The 18-year-old, who became Dutch junior time trial champion earlier this year, completed the 20km course in a time of 27:02 to claim the title. While some of the pre-race favourites came up short - some suckered by the climb - there were a couple of surprise packages on the podium, with early-starter Camilla Alessio (Italy) the runner-up at six seconds and first-year junior Elynor Backstedt (Great Britain) third at 17 seconds.

Patrick is a freelance sports writer and editor. He’s an NCTJ-accredited journalist with a bachelor’s degree in modern languages (French and Spanish). Patrick worked full-time at Cyclingnews for eight years between 2015 and 2023, latterly as Deputy Editor.