The 2016 UCI Road World Championships are just around the corner and, with the flat Qatar course likely to culminate in a bunch sprint, Cyclingnews’ casts an eye back through the archives on the most memorable sprint finishes in the recent history of the men's road race.
The course for this year’s race is based on a flat, fast and sinous 15km circuit on the Peal - an artificial island in Doha - to be covered seven times. The race, however, starts out in the desert, and if the winds blow, echelons could form and make the race a more uncontrollable and unpredictable affair. While a group sprint should come about, the size of the group and the nature of the sprint will be shaped in the desert.
Three of the past four editions of the men's Worlds road race have been won solo, with Rui Costa winning a two-up sprint in the other one, so we have to go back to 2011 for the last pure bunch sprint on the men’s side, when Mark Cavendish pulled on the rainbow bands in Copenhagen.
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There have been plenty of memorable sprints over the last few decades - here's our pick of the bunch.
2011: Cavendish comes from nowhere
The 2011 Worlds felt like they belonged to Mark Cavendish long before he picked his way through a chaotic finale in Copenhagen and unleashed a sprint no one could match. Going into the race, there was little doubt that the Manxman sat head and shoulders at the top of the sprinting world, having just taken another five stages at that year’s Tour de France to take his tally to 21 in the space of five editions.
With such favourite status came great pressure, which must have only been enhanced going into the final kilometres by the awareness of the work his Great Britain teammates - a constant controlling presence at the head of the peloton - had done for him since the start of the day. Yet Cavendish had to do it all himself in the final kilometre. GB were on the front but the Manxman found himself several wheels back. Geraint Thomas dropped back to try and find him but was of little use by that stage, and Cavendish, so used to having the famous HTC leadout train in front of him, was going to have to do it the hard way.
2005: Boonen caps glorious campaign
2002: Cipollini roars home
1999: Freire’s surprise package
1972: Basso snatches victory from Bitossi
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