photo credits @ UCI/Twitter
Kevin LeDanois of France survived a frenetic sprint, to win the U23 men’s World Championships Road Race in Richmond, Virginia today.
LeDanois surged into the lead late and handled the final Governor’s Street hill well. But, he was nearly overtaken on Broad Street by Italian Simone Consonni, who finished a mere bike length and a half back.
Meanwhile, LeDanois’s compatriot, Anthony Turgis, finished third a further 2 seconds back.
Race Highlights
The early stages of today’s 10 lap, 162.2 kilometer race, were punctuated a five-rider breakaway group containing Eddie Dunbar (Ireland), Jose Luis Rodriguez (Chile), Oleg Zemlyakov (Kazakhstan), Maximilian Schachmann (Germany) and Davide Martinelli (Italy).
Dunbar was dropped on the ascent of the sharp cobbled climb of Libby Hill, followed by Martinez, who was also dropped out of the lead group with a mechanical problem – leaving the trio of Rodriguez, Zemlyakov and Schachmann to carry-on.
However, with 25 kilometers to go, the leaders’ advantage had dropped to only 25 seconds.
With two laps remaining, the British contingent took control of the chase, eventually catching the escapees on the penultimate time up Libby Hill.
Søren Kragh Andersen (Denmark), crested the top alone – subsequently building up a slight 10 second lead of his own during the descent. But, a determined peloton quickly caught the Danish rider inside the final 10 kilometer.
From there, Martinelli, Nils Politt (Germany), Jakub Kaczmarek (Poland) struck out on their own. But, a lack of cohesion kept them from getting far over the final 3 climbs.
Not long after, chaos struck the peloton, wherein Nathan Van Hooydonck (Belgium), Owain Doull (Great Britain) and ads Würtz Schmidt (Denmark) were all taken out by crashes, while the French duo managed to stay ahead of the fray.
Ledanois capitalized on the chaos, going solo during in the final two kilometers. And, despite a concerted chase by Italian riders behind, he held out up the final climb of Governor Street to take the victory.
Top 25 Finishers
1. Kevin Ledanois, France, in 3:54:45 2. Simone Consonni, Italy, at :00 3. Anthony Turgis, France, at :02 4. Gianni Moscon, Italy, at :02 5. Alexander KampEgested, Denmark, at :05 6. Fabian Lienhard, Switzerland, at :05 7. Michal Schlegel, Czech Republic, at :05 8. Lucas Gaday Orozco, Argentina, at :05 9. Adam DeVos, Canada, at :10 10. Lennard Kamna, Germany, at :12 11. Merhawi Kudus Ghebremedhin, Eritrea, at :12 12. Tom Bohli, Switzerland, at :12 13. Jack Haig, Australia, at :12 14. Tim Kerkhof, Netherlands, at :13 15. Mihkel Raim, Estonia, at :13 16. Michal Paluta, Poland, at :13 17. Benjamin Declercq, Belgium, at :13 18. Jakub Kaczmarek, Poland, at :13 19. Maxime Farazijn, Belgium, at :13 20. Miguel Angel Benito Diez, Spain, at :16 21. Alexander Wachter, Austria, at :16 22. Sam Oomen, Netherlands, at :16 23. Twan Brusselman, Netherlands, at :16 24. Imanol Estevez, Spain, at :24 25. Rok Korosec, Slovenia, at :24
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