Cavendish, riding for the Great Britain team, got a huge amount of help. For one thing, the course could not have been better suited to his abilities, with no serious climbing. Second, a crash sidelined one of his chief rivals, defending champion Thor Hushovd; and finally, the British team rode heroically to deliver him to the. finish line in good shape.
Once he got close, it was all Cavendish. The Manx Missile got separated from his leadout rider and was mired tenth back in the field coming into the final few hundred meters. Cavendish somehow found a way through the pack of jostling riders, sneaking up the inside on the wheel of Australia’s Matt Goss, and suddenly exploding along the right-hand barrier.
Perhaps the surprise helped him. Certainly his timing was impeccable; since the end of the course sloped upward, Cav had to get closer to the line before starting his flat-out sprint.
In any case, Cavendish breezed past powerful German sprinter André Greipel and beat Matt Goss by half a wheel to win the gold medal and the World Championship.
Cavendish talked about the win as a team victory.
“There couldn’t be another result after the way the guys rode today,” he said on Eurosport.com. “We had eight of the best guys in the world and it’s the first time we’ve come together. It’s incredible—they took the race on from start to finish and we won. I can’t believe it.
“We knew three years ago when this course was announced, that it could be good for us. We put a plan together come with the best group of guys to this race to bring the rainbow jersey back to Britain. It’s been three years in the making.
“The guys worked so hard to collect points throughout this season to get eight riders here and then you just saw, they rode incredible. I’m so, so proud.”
Winning the Rainbow jersey was a dream come true, he told copenhagen2011.dk.
“I have won the green jersey in the TDF and won Milan-San Remo, but this jersey signifies the greatest thing I can get, really, I get to ride with the Rainbow bands all next year and to wear them on my sleeves for the rest of my life.”
Now World Champion, what next for the world’s fastest sprinter? The 2012 London Olympics, of course.
“It’s a big goal for us—it’s the biggest goal next year. Hopefully we can do the double, winning the Worlds this year and the Olympics next year.”
Team Effort
The race began with a 28-km segment leading to the 14-km race route which was lapped 17 times for a total of 266 kilometers—a fairly long race, but with no real challenging hills.
40 km in, the frist breakaway formed, after dozens of abortive efforts. A group of seven riders—Anthony Roux (France,) Maxim Iglinksy (Kazakhstan,) Pablo Lastras (Spain,) Christian Poos (Luxembourg,) Tanai Kangert (Estonia,) Oleg Chuzda (Ukraine,) and Robert Kiserlovski (Croatia)—opened a gap of nearly eight minutes, but Great Britain, leading the peloton, was not worried. No one expected the break to succeed; the terrain was too flat. All the big teams banked on a sprint finish.
A second break formed with seven laps to go— Olivier Kaisen and Johan Van Summeren (Belgium,) Simon Clarke (Australia,) Yoann Offredo (France,) and Luca Paolini (Italy) tried to bridge across, but by this time the British team had decided to start chasing, and all the attackers were doomed.
With six laps to go the gap was down to two minutes. Chris Froome, Steve Cummings, and Gerraint Thomas led early, and Bradley Wiggins put in extended pulls late in the race to make sure no attacks could get away.
Not that no one tired; attacks were frequent. The Brits just slowly increased the pace, rode down the attacks, and settle down to keep chasing the initial breakaway.
Halfway through the sixth lap, Fränk Schleck of Germany hit the deck, taking a bunch of riders with him, including defending champion Thor Hushovd. Other big sprinters, including Julian Dean of New Zealand and Bernard Eisel of Austria , went down in the crash. All the riders continued, but they lost a lot of time, and with Great Britain keeping the pace high, they didn’t stand a chance of getting back.
The two leading groups had merged by this time; with four laps remaining their lead was down to 1:35. It was clear they had no chance of success.
With three laps to go, Anthony Roux of France attacked the breakaway as the tired riders fell off the pace. A lap later, Holland’s Martin Tjallingi bridged across to him, Joined by France’s Thomas Voeckler and Klaas Lodewyck of Belgium. These three fought bravely, but coming into the last lap their lead was only 17 seconds.
7 km from the line all the escapees had been caught and the sprinters’ teams began fighting for position. Italy brought five riders to the front leading Daniele Bennati, then the Australians moved up. Great Britain still had four riders for Cavendish but all were pretty tired.
The U.S. team made its bid in the final kilometer, coming along the left side of the peloton to get Tyler Farrar into position, while Germany moved up the right with a bunch of riders leading André Greipel.
Brits Ian Stannard and Gerraint Thomas led around the final corner, but Mark Cavendish had gotten stuck in traffic. The Aussies then took over, with Heinrich Hausler leading Matt Goss.
Cav fought his way onto Goss’s wheel, and waited until a few other sprinters had launched, to swing out and take off on his own run. Goss tried to react, but it was too late.
“When he went, I kind of jumped on the wheel,” Goss told velonews.com. “I knew it was still a long way to the finish line and I had in the back of my mind I could get back if everything went well, but in the end I ran out of meters.”
“We started working on this win three years ago when the course was made public, Cavendish repeated in the post-race press conference on copenhagen2011.d. “We saw that it was probably the best opportunity we had to bring the Rainbow Jersey back to Great Britain for the first time since Tommy Simpson won it in 1965.
“We worked with [(national coach] Rod Ellingworth in getting together the right group of guys and to qualify as many guys as possible—this win is not just by the eight guys today it’s also of the 13-14 British ProTour riders who secured the points to qualify such a big team for the race.”
|
2011 UCI Road World Championship Men’s Elite Road Race | |||
|
1 |
Mark Cavendish |
Great Britain |
5:40:27 |
|
2 |
Matt Goss |
Australia |
+0:00 |
|
3 |
André Greipel |
Germany |
+0:00 |
|
4 |
Fabian Cancellara |
Switzerland |
+0:00 |
|
5 |
Jurgen Roelandts |
Belgium |
+0:00 |
|
6 |
Romain Feillu |
France |
+0:00 |
|
7 |
Borut Bozic |
Slovenia |
+0:00 |
|
8 |
Edvald Boasson Hagen |
Norway |
+0:00 |
|
9 |
Oscar Freire Gomez |
Spain |
+0:00 |
|
10 |
Tylar Farrar |
USA |
+0:00 |
