Four overall victories and ten stage wins at the Tour of Qatar over the years made Kirsten Wild (Netherlands) the obvious favourite for victory in the women's road race at the World Championships, and the galaxy of stars flanking her in the Netherlands team only shortened her odds still further.
Riders of the calibre of Marianne Vos, Ellen van Dijk, Anna van der Breggen and Annemiek van Vleuten were deployed as a rather deluxe cohort of domestiques for the occasion, and when Wild found herself behind no fewer than seven orange jerseys at the front of the bunch with six kilometres remaining, it seemed as if she was about to sleep walk to victory behind the Dream Team.
Nothing is ever that simple in cycling, of course, and still less against an elite peloton at the World Championships. The Dutch squad scarcely put a pedal stroke askew all day, yet the nightmare scenario ensued all the same. After Vos led her out, Wild opened her sprint from distance and looked every inch a winner, only to be overhauled by 20-year-old Amalie Dideriksen (Denmark) within metres of the line.
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"Of course I hoped to win gold: the same as everybody, I guess." Wild said. "I have to admit I'm disappointed. I think it was a really strong race from the team. I can't blame anything but myself."
While the Netherlands dictated the terms of engagement on the final lap, a race within a race took place behind, as riders scrambled for position in Wild's slipstream. Her misfortune, perhaps, was that a sprinter with Dideriksen's raw speed won that particular battle.
"I looked behind when we came to the last corner and I saw Amalie on my wheel so I thought it would be a hard one because I knew she was strong," Wild said. "We only had two girls on the front and I knew it would be hard to make the whole kilometre. So in the end I was a bit early and she passed me in the last metres."
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