Anna van der Breggen wins road world championships with astonishing ride

• Dutch cyclist adds elusive title to glittering CV
• Spratt finishes second while Britain’s Dani Rowe suffers a fall

She had won gold at the Olympic Games and European Championships. She had won the Giro Rosa and La Course by Tour de France. But for so long, success at the UCI Road World Championships had proven elusive for Anna van der Breggen.

On four occasions the Dutchwoman had placed in the road race top 10, including second in 2015. Three times she had won the individual time trial silver medal, most recently on Tuesday. But as her compatriots Annemiek van Vleuten and Chantal Blaak added world titles to their palmares in recent years, the rainbow jersey remained conspicuously absent from Van der Breggen’s record.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2DHbq8T