News – World title for Armitstead

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Britain’s Golden girl, Lizzie Armitstead races to a rainbow jersey at the World Road Race Championships in the USA

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News – World title for Armitstead

After coming so close in 2014 to realising the dream result of winning a rainbow jersey, Lizzie Armitstead sprinted to the title this year ahead of the Netherlands’ Anna van der Breggen with Megan Guarnier of the USA in third.

The British Road Race champion, who so spectacularly won the first stage of the Avia Women’s Tour before crashing, said afterwards “I just can’t believe it. I took the decision to lead it out and then waited for the rush to come, but it never came. It will be fantastic to wear the rainbow jersey for the next year.”

“It’s all you dream about as a cyclist is wearing the rainbow jersey and it’s so strange that it is mine.”

Armitstead, last month won the UCI Women’s World Cup for a second successive year and the Gold medal was her second of the championships after getting a Silver medal in the Women’s Team Time Trial with her Netherlands-based Boels-Dolmans team.

Armitstead becomes only the fourth British woman to win the title after yellow Yorkshire woman Beryl Burton, Mandy Jones and Nicole Cooke.

 

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The Race
After the morning when rain fell on the Junior Men’s race, the Women’s race was largely dry and the early race attacks came with the peloton reticent to let anything go. It wasn’t until the final laps of the course that a selection started to form and a small group of around nine riders went clear.

With France, Australia, Sweden, Italy, Netherlands, Germany and Poland represented, Armitstead was trapped in the bunch.

A chase from Germany and the Netherlands came to her rescue though and the break was brought back before Armitstead started to take control of the race at the front with some tough attacks on the final climbs with a kilometre to go.

That reduced the numbers up front with only dozen or so left as Armitstead swung over to look at the damage. The Polish rider took to the front for a few seconds but the rest of Armitstead’s rivals were now following her rear wheel, perhaps waiting for the next attack.

With everyone looking at each other, and the dropped riders coming back to the front runners, it was a game of who would go first and it was Anna van der Breggen who opened the taps first with Armistead making the brave move of staying on the barriers where she could have found herself boxed in.

The speed of Anna van der Breggen though stretched the group and gaps opened for Armitstead to switch to the middle of the road and the drag race over the last 100 metres ensured between Anna van der Breggen and the British rider crossed the line hands firmly on the bars well clear to become World Champion.

“I prepared the best I could” says Lizzie. “Physically, I was in the best shape of my career and then you have to have lady luck on your side and she was with me today. Even rain, it was perfect.”

“I didn’t get to celebrate because I was going all the way for that line. My plan was always to attack on Governor street to get rid of the likes of Bronzini and the sprinters. I knew the sprint was going to be difficult and I had to lead it out so I did that.”

Result:
1. Lizzie Armitstead, Great Britain
2. Anna van der Breggen, Netherlands,
3. Megan Guarnier, USA

79. Hayley Simmonds

Junior Men
In the first race of the day, for Junior Men, Felix Gall (Austria) won the race with Britain’s Nathan Draper eighth and his teammate Joey Walker in 19th, a great result for the RST Racing team which the two both race for at home.

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