Chantal Blaak (Netherlands) soloed to victory in the elite women’s road race at the World Championships in Bergen after her Dutch team made its numerical advantage count in the winning move. Katrin Garfoot (Australia) got away to take to second place ahead of 2016 champion Amalie Dideriksen (Denmark), who sprinted from the peloton as it was catching the chasers, 28 seconds down on the winner.
Blaak overcame a crash early in the race to fight her way back up to the peloton, and she proceeded to ignite the finale when she attacked with 23km to go. The Dutchwoman was joined in that initial move by Audrey Cordon (France) and Hannah Barnes (Great Britain), and they took the bell for the final lap with a lead of 30 seconds over the bunch.
Powerful reinforcements arrived on the final haul up Salmon Hill, when Blaak’s Dutch teammates Anna van der Breggen and Annemiek van Vleuten, Kasia Niewiadoma (Poland) and Garfoot bridged across just before the summit, and it was immediately clear that this leading group of seven would decide the spoils.
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Van Vleuten was the first to attack on the descent off Salmon Hill, and when she was shut down, Blaak made a dig of her own with 8 kilometres remaining. With her teammates controlling the others in the group, Blaak was able to pull away, and she had time to savour her victory as she entered the final kilometre.
Garfoot, Niewiadoma, Barnes and Cordon were unable to marshal a coherent chase, and the peloton caught that group inside the breathless final kilometre, by which point Blaak was already celebrating her victory. Garfoot had the strength to win the sprint for second ahead of Dideriksen, while Van Vleuten took 4th in front of Niewiadoma.
A Dutch victory had been predicted by many, but most were pointing towards Van der Breggen or Van Vleuten as the likely champion. With those three in the final and decisive break group, it looked as if they could pick who they wanted to take the win. The two remaining in the group after Blaak's escape controlled the happenings and prevented a serious chase, although it often seemed as if the other riders had no interest in chasing.
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