The women's road race brought the curtain down on the UCI World Road Championships in Glasgow, Scotland, today where Megan Armitage and Lara Gillespie battled to finish the 154km bruising event after Alice Sharpe worked for them in the early stages.
A massive split in the field saw the three Irish riders caught out after about 40km, before the race reached the circuits in Glasgow. However, as many of the big nations had several riders in what was effectively the second section of the peloton, the two groups eventually merged just before they raced onto the circuit, even though the gap was over 1:30 at one point.
Sharpe could be seen on the front at times in the second large group, helping to close the gap, though the Dutch appeared to do the lion's share of the work as several of their riders, including Marianne Vos, were also caught out.
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Gillespie said the race was extremely tough, though her cause was clearly not helped today by a bout of sickness she had picked up.
"To be honest, I got dropped before the climb even and I was suffering so bad," she said of finding herself off the back before the circuits and getting back on. "I had a really bad ear-ache and head-ache, I thought I was going to have to come out and when I started coming up the climb, I started to feel a bit better.
"I got back on on the descent and was in the main group and then the second main group caught the first main group and then I started to feel really good on the crit (circuit) but on the last lap there I just felt so sick and my gears were also messing up so I couldn’t even (sprint) – I saw Julie de Wilde attack on the Montrose hill and I was like: ‘That is where I should be’."
How it panned out
Once the race reached the Glasgow circuits, the main field effectively disintegrated - not helped by some crashes on the city centre streets. From very early in that second phase of the race, on the city circuit, a group of 30-40 riders formed out front.
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And behind them everyone was in survival mode; doing their best to get into groups and continuing to press on in the hope of finishing. Elise Chabbey (Switzerland), who had been active in some of the early breakaway moves that were brought back, attacked with about 75km to go and would spend the next 60km of the race leading solo.
At one point, as the group behind really whittled down, it looked like indecision in that small chasing group would play into the Swiss rider's hands. Though she built a gap of over 1:30 at one point, her lead was below 30 seconds for much of her breakaway. But as the chasers closed right up to her, reducing her advantage below 10-15 seconds several times, they would then look at each other, allowing Chabbey pull the gap out once more.
The Dutch effort looked like it was being undermined by less than cohesive team work, with outgoing world champion Annemiek van Vleuten not fully committing to chasing on behalf of her team mate, and team leader, Demi Vollering. Meanwhile, Vollering and hot favourite Lotte Kopecky (Belgium), were watching each other very closely, all of which benefited Chabbey for a long time.
But as the final lap approached, some big moves from Kopecky and Vollering finally saw Chabbey's time out front brought to an end. And on that final lap, Kopecky was by far the best and took a deserved win. She pulled clear with Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig, though the Danish rider could not hold onto her Belgian rival.
Over the second half of the final passage of the circuit, Kopecky led from Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig, with Vollering and Marlen Reusser (Switzerland) just behind. Kopecky made it look easy as Vollering came storming through at the end to just pip Uttrup Ludwig in the battle for silver and bronze just seven seconds down on the solo winner.
Ireland's Gillespie and Armitage finished in a group 15 minutes down; Gillespie in 68th in a large group at 14:49 sprinting for 36th place and Armitage just a few seconds off the back of that group, in 79th at 15:05. That result for Gillespie put her in 14th place in the U23 category and the group she was in was sprinting for 5th place in that category.
