Mathieu van der Poel claimed the men’s world road race title in Glasgow in a thrilling race which saw Owain Doull finish the highest rank Brit after being involved in a strong breakaway group. Belgian Wout van Aert finished second, while Slovenia’s Tadej Pogačar took third.
An early lead was created by Patrick Gamper followed swiftly by Ireland’s Rory Townsend before a chase group including Brit Owain Doull soon brought them back into the fold to form a strong breakaway of nine riders.
Also in the group were Matthew Dinham, Harold Tejada, Kevin Vermaerke, Ryan Christensen, Krists Neilands and Petr Kelemen.
British rider Doull continued to play a key part in the front group and when the race passed the 200km remaining mark, their lead had teetered around eight minutes. They were chased by the trio of Eric Antonio Fagundez, George Bennett, and Rien Schuurhuis before José Alarcon and Hasani Hennis broke free from the peloton to form a second chase group.
Just before the climb up Crow Road in the Carron Valley area with 191km left in the race, a protest on a narrower section of the road interrupted proceedings and halted the front group’s efforts as the race was paused.
As there are no race radios at the World Championships despite them being a common method of communication at many professional races, the peloton were notified of the disruption in the form of a written sign held at the back of the motorbike in front of them.
Due to the volume of riders in the peloton it took some time for the police vehicles to make their way up to the protest, thus delaying the restart of the race further as the riders got off their bikes, some sitting in team cars to save their energy.
The protestors, later claimed by climate protestors This is Rigged, had glued themselves to the B818 before Police Scotland arrested five people.
When the race restarted after 50 minutes of disruption, Doull led the nine riders from the front group as they got back on the road again to make their way towards the Crow Road climb. The peloton started with a high intensity that would follow for the remainder of the race as they upped the pace to try and close down the breakaway group who were over six minutes away.
Doull, who races for Team EF Education-EasyPost continued to provide British representation in the breakaway group but behind in the peloton, a nasty crash took down Colombian Fernando Gaviria who went over the handlebars and hit the road hard which prematurely ended his World Championships with 160km remaining.
Great Britain’s Jake Stewart was involved in a crash with 134km left, and he would later go on to abandon the race.
The urgency of the peloton then brought the gap down to under five minutes as they got closer to Glasgow where the atmosphere was building to welcome the riders for ten laps of 14.4km around the city centre in a criterium-esque circuit.
Brit Samuel Watson then abandoned the race after a few laps of the circuit while teammate Doull remained ahead in the front group. With eight laps to go fellow Brit, national road race champion Fred Wright was unable to keep up with the rapid pace of the peloton and was dropped.
Connor Swift and Luke Rowe were then also dropped from the group while in the meantime Doull enjoyed a more positive fate as he led the front of the race through the finish line for seven laps to go. After being dropped not long before, Wright then left the race.
Disaster then struck for Irishman Townsend who suffered a mechanical issue and dropped back from the group he had been a stalwart in for much of the race. With 88km to go Ben Turner became the next Brit to abandon.
The race continued to hot up as the laps passed with Great Britain’s starting team now significantly reduced. After an attack from the front group from Vermaerke, Doull’s chasing group were then caught, and the Brit moved into the chasing group which also included defending champion Remco Evenepoel (Belgium).
With 61km to go Doull was part of the lead group that had brought back Vermaerke and teammate Connor Swift was part of the bunch behind. While Doull had no teammates with him in the front group, Evenepoel was joined by fellow Belgians Van Aert, Jasper Stuyven, Nathan Van Hooydonck, and Tiesj Benoot. Also included in the lead group was former Tour de France winner Pogačar, he too without any teammates, as well as Dutch duo Van der Poel and Dylan van Baarle.
Van der Poel, who earlier in the week was seen confidently climbing up the Montrose Street climb, did the same in the race, and further attacks were also seen from Evenepoel and Pogačar among others. As the rain began to fall in Glasgow, Italian Alberto Bettiol broke free from the lead group with 55km remaining.
Bettiol worked up a lead of over half a minute but as the pace continued to increase Doull was then dropped into a third chasing group which had formed while Swift sat in the bunch behind his teammate. A formidable four of Van Aert, Pogačar, Van der Poel, and former World Champion Mads Pedersen made up a chase group that continued in pursuit of the Italian.
The rain continued to fall which provided scenes similar to Pedersen’s road race win in Harrogate in 2019, and Bettiol remained ahead, then by a gap of 1’23” with two laps to go, while Evenepoel was dropped from the third group.
Bettiol was caught with 22km to go after a solo attack from Van der Poel down who left his three chasing comrades behind to go clear. The Dutchman stormed up Montrose once more to further his lead and after recovering from a crash he continued into the final lap solo.
With under 10km left Van der Poel had a lead of almost a minute and a half. Following a final solo climb up Montrose Street he remained solo to take his first World road race title as he placed his hands on his head in disbelief before lifting them in celebration as he crossed the line. Van Aert crossed second, also solo, 1’37” behind Van der Poel while Pogačar took third 1’45” behind the winner. Doull finished 18th, and was the highest placed British rider as Swift, second and final rider in the GB team to cross the line finished 26th after the rest of the team were DNFs. Irish rider Townsend, who was a key part of the breakaway with Doull, was also a DNF.
