Sunday, the road race World Championships were held in pouring rain. The international peloton was challenged with no less than 272 kilometers of hard racing on a severely undulating course in Florenze, Italy.
As often seen in the World Championships, the peloton was steadily but surely emptied of riders and with 80 kilometers to go, a duo consisting of Jan Barta (Czech Republic) and Bartosz Huzarski (Poland) had a gap to the field of three minutes. In the field, different nations were trying to control the pack but the climbs made it hard to lead even though Belgium had no less than six riders left in the field while all British riders had abandoned.
The Italians opened the finale by launching Giovanni Visconti and he managed to bridge the gap to Huzarski who had now dropped Barta while the Belgians set the pace in the pack as the favorites were still playing the waiting game. With 30 kilometers to go, the duo was swept up and the Belgians maintained the high pace. Team Saxo-Tinkoff’s Chris Anker Sørensen fought heroically to hang on to the front as he lost terrain on the climbs but made his way back to the pack on the descents throughout the finale.
Only 45 riders were in the peloton as they entered the final lap in Florence. And Saxo-Tinkoff’s Chris Anker Sørensen went to the front of the group with compatriot, Jakob Fuglsang on his wheel and he managed to drop several riders in the bunch.
But a promising gap was made by Joaquim Rodriguez (Spain) on the slippery descent and he managed to isolate Vincenzo Nibali (Italy) in the chase group where he was shadowed by Alejandro Valverde (Spain). However, the Italian was able to bridge the gap with Valverde and Rui Costa (Portugal) on his wheel.
Rodriguez managed to create a new and what to appear to be the crucial gap but on with 400 meters to go, Rui Costa bridged the gap and the Portuguese rider showed no mercy in the sprint as he outsprinted Rodriguez and won the most spectacular World Championship in recent years.
1 Rui Costa (Portugal) 7:25:44
,,2 Joaquim Rodriguez (Spain)
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3 Alejandro Valverde (Spain) 0:00:16
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4 Vincenzo Nibali (Italy) 0:00:16
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5 Andriy Grivko (Ukraine) 0:00:31
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6 Peter Sagan (Slovakia) 0:00:34
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7 Simon Clarke (Australia) 0:00:34
,,8 Maxim Iglinskiy (Kazakhstan) 0:00:34
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9 Philippe Gilbert (Belgium) 0:00:34
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10 Fabian Cancellara (Switzerland) 0:00:34