“First of all, I want to bring my condolences to the family of Muriel [Furrer],” says our winner in an interview with Eurosport. “The minute of silence at the start, seeing the Swiss riders crying is just something you don’t want to see and I think it’s a very hard moment for them as well.”
On it being a good win mentally as well as physically: “Yeah for sure, certainly my head,” she says. “It was a really annoying day because it was raining, it was cold but on the climbs it was warm, then on the downhills you got so cold. Three laps from the end I was actually freezing but I tried to stay as [mentally] cool as possible. I had some difficulties when Demi went on the final climb but I just tried to stay at my own pace and come back.
“At the end it was just a lot of mind games so I was just trying to stay as cool as possible and use my energy at the right moments.”
That sprint: Longo Borghini was first to make her move on the straight run to the finish but Lotte Kopecky was keeping a good eye on her and eased past to win comfortably from Dygert by about two bike-lengths.
Longo-Borghini took bronze in a lunge to the line ahead of Liane Lippert, while Demi Vollering and Ruby Roseman-Gannon finished fifth and sixth without mounting any sort of challenge for a podium places in the closing stages. They were clearly exhausted.
The Belgian comes out on top in a six-woman sprint to win the women’s elite road race at these World Championships and majke it back-to-back victories.
2km to go: Roseman-Gannon and Dygert are trying to ride themselves back into contention and if the lead quartet start messing about playing cat-and-mouse in the closing stages, there’s every chance they could do exactly that. A Roseman-Gannon swoop from nowhere, anyone?
3km to go: Vollering catches Longo Borghini, with Lippert and Kopecky on her wheel. We’re into the final three kilometres of the race and the rest of the course is pancake flat.
7km to go: Heading back into Zurich on a fast descent, Lotte Kopecky, leads a front group of five riders, with Chloe Dygert a few seconds behind. Contrary to what I said in a previous post, I can confirm Roseman-Gannon is in the lead group but struggling to stay in touch.
10km to go: The road kicks upwards briefly and Demi Vollering attacks but she’s unable to get rid of anyone apart from her two teammates, Vos and Markus, as well Ghekiere, the Belgian. The lead group is down to five riders, with Roseman-Gannon also out of the picture.
11km to go: Barring something extremely unexpected, this race will be won by one of nine riders. They are: Vos, Markus and Vollering (Netherlands), Kopecky and Ghekiere (Belgium), Lippert (Germany), Roseman-Gannon (Australia), Dygert (USA) and Longo-Borghini (Italy).
14km to go: In the lead quintet, Ruby Roseman-Gannon (Australia) is pointedly refusing to put in a shift at the front. Any time she’s asked, she just shakes her head. They’re about to be joined by Chloe Dygert (USA), while Lotte Kopecky (Belgium) is also back in touch. Vos, Kopecky and Gannon are the fastest finishers.
17km to go: Your lead group: Ghekiere (Belgium), Vollering and Voss (Netherlands), Longo Borghini (Italy), Roseman-Gannon (Australia). Vollering is working hard at the front to try to put more distance between themselves and the chasing Lotte Kopecky (Belgium) and Chloe Dygert (USA) can’t catch them.
18km to go: I had a feeling that clock was wrong and it seems I was right. Using the evidence of my own eyes, I can reveal that Demi Vollering, Elisa Longo Borghini and Liane Lippert have caught the lead quartet. They have a slender lead over Lotte Kopecky and Chole Dygart, who can be seen in the background playing catch-up as they negotiate the last bit of the climb.
20km to go: The two Dutch riders are doing all the work at the front of the race, while Australia’s Ruby Roseman-Gannon is sitting at the back of the quartet on the wheel of Justine Ghekiere (Belgium), hitching a free ride.
Germany’s Liane Lippert is working hard at the front of the chase group, which contains Lotte Kopecky (Belgium), Chloe Dygert (USA), Demi Vollering (Netherlands) and Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy).
22km to go: This race is being staged in Switzerland but the timekeeping seems to be uncharacterisitcally all over the place and definitely not living up to lazy traditional stereotypes. We’re now being told the four leaders have a lead of a minute over the chasing bunch.
24km to go: Our lead quartet is Marianne Vos (Netherlands), Riejanne Markus (Netherlands), Justine Ghekiere (Belgium) and Ruby Roseman-Gannon (Australia) and they’re currently tackling an 18% gradient climb. Vos and Gannon are the two fastest sprinters in this front four but they’ve lost almost 20 seconds on this climb. They’re over the steepest part of it now.
26km to go: Our lead quartet take the bell for the final circuit with a lead of a minute over the peloton containing the main contenders. First past the post on this occasion, Belgium’s Justine Ghekiere tries and fails to remove something to eat from the pocket of her jersey. It looks like her hands are too cold for her to get a grip on anything. She removes and discards her wet gloves and gives the hands in question a good shake to try to get the blood coursing.
31km to go: My humble apologies – the Australian who was on Vos’s wheel is Ruby Roseman-Gannon, not Neve Bradbury, who is back in the peloton. They join Justine Ghekiere and Riejanne Markus at the head of the race and the gap is 20 seconds. A penny for the thoughts of Riejanne Markus as she saw her compatriot Vos ride upsides her. I think she’d rather the world’s greatest sprinter had stayed away. As things stand, this race is set up for a terrific finish that is impossible to predict.
35km to go: Riejanne Markus (Netherlands) and Justine Ghekiere (Belgium) have a lead of 18 seconds over the other contenders as they begin the latest descent. The road is drenched with rain and both riders are generating plenty of spray with their back wheels.
40km to go: Riejanne Markus (Netherlands) and Justine Ghekiere (Belgium) attack the lead group and open a gap of 50 seconds. Behind them, Marianne Vos (Netherlands) and Katarzyna Niewiadoma (Poland) have both rejoined the group. Indeed, Vos has not only rejoined it, but pedalled onwards in pursuit of the two leaders. With no race radio, she may not know her teammate Riejanne Markus is ahead of her up the road.
43km to go: Juliette Labous attacks off the front of a lead group that is now comprised of about 15 riders. Lotte Kopecky (Belgium), Chloe Dygart (USA), Demi Vollering (Netherlands), Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy), Neve Bradbury (Australia), Noemi Ruegg (Switzerland), Justine Ghekiere (Belgium), Puck Pieterse (Netherlands), Riejanne Markus (Netherlands) and Minke Anderson (Denmark) are all in the lead group.
46km to go: Demi Vollering (Netherlands) takes it up at the front with Eva Longho Borghini (Italy) on her wheel. Juliette Labous (France) is next, then Liane Lippert (Germany), followed by Lotte Kopecky (Belgium)
48km to go: Pauliena Rooijakkers gets out of the saddle, stands on her pedals and beats out a ferocious rhythm as she leads the field up the latest climb. Marianne Vos is struggling to keep up, with her Dutch teammate clearly piling on the pain in a bid to shell as many contenders as possible to make life as easy as possible for Demi Vollering.
52km to go: Our lead group is now comprised of about 40 riders, six of them representing the Netherlands, including Demi Vollering and Marianne Vos. Lotte Kopecky has her Belgian compatriot Justine Ghekiere in the bunch for company, while Kristen Faulkner (USA), Chloe Dygart (USA), Anna Henderson (Great Britain), Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy), Urska Zygart (Slovenia), Cecile Ludwig (Denmark), Grace Brown (Australia), Katarzyna Niewiadoma (Poland) are among the big names in the mix.
55km to go: Lotte Kopecky drops back to her team car to pick up a bidon and get some running repairs done on her jersey with what looks like a pair of scissors. Your guess is as good as mine. She’s wearing long sleeves and one of a minority of riders in the field wearing leg warmers. Not the woolly 1980s type that only cover your shins and calves, I hasten to add, but skintight black ones that stretch from hip to ankle.
56km to go: A three-times elite women’s world road race champion (2006, 2012 and 2013), Vos is one of four former champions competing today. Belgium’s Lottie Kopecky (2023), Italy’s Elisa Balsamo (2021) and France’s Pauline Ferreand-Prevot (2014) are the others.
59km to go: The lead group fractures into two on the descent but the two sets of riders merge into one again as the course levels out. Marianne Vos in one of four or five Dutch riders near the front. Unlike her teammate Demi Vollering, she will be wholeheartedly in favour of a sprint finish because she’d almost certainly win it.
60km to go: Mischa Bredewold (Netherlands) puts the hammer down as she leads what’s left of the field down a six-kilometre descent in extremely treacherous conditions.
63km to go: The defending champion Lotte Kopecky (Belgium) is comfortably ensconced in the lead group but looks fairly isolated. I don’t think any of her teammates are alongside her or even in the group. It’s very difficult to be certain as a lot of riders have their jerseys covered by rain jackets.
69km to go: Having decimated the peloton and got several riders into the lead bunch, the Netherlands are making the pace courtesy of Mischa Bredewold. Elinor Barker (Breat Britain) and Kristen Faulkner (USA) are in a group of about eight riders who are over a minute behind.
68km to go: A very select group of about 35 riders, if that, led by the Dutch and with strong Australian representation, currently lead the race. British riders Anna Henderson and Alice Towers are both in the lead bunch. Another group of 65 riders are over three minutes behind.
73km to go: Our lead group is currently comprised of about 25 riders, with another group a few seconds behind. Pauliena Rooijakkers (Netherlands) is making the pace at the front of the bunch. They pass through a feed zone and several riders drop bidons as they try to grab them from the roadside soigneurs. A sign of very cold fingers combined with very wet bottles, one presumes.
Mischa Bredewold (Netherlands) is one of those who has to go without a drink and she slams her handlebars in irritation. If she opens her mouth and looks towards the heavens, she can slake her thirst on the deluge of rain which continues to fall from the sky.
74km to go: The Dutch have strength in numbers here, with two riders in the breakaway and two others at the front of the chasing bunch, who are about to catch them. Vollering, the strongest of them, will not want this race to end in a sprint finish.
75km to go: The gap is at 30 seconds and as the peloton tackles the latest climb, Pauliena Rooijakkers is making the pace at the front with her teammate Demi Vollering on first wheel.
78km to go: With three laps of racing remaining, our lead group of 11 riders have a lead of 12 seconds over the bunch. I can finally reveal that Urska Zigart (Slovenia) and Mie Ottestad (Norway) are also in the breakaway.
An accomplished cyclist who was controversially left out of Slovenia’s team for the Paris 2024 Olympics, Zigart is the compatriot and girlfriend of a young up-and-coming men’s cyclist named Tadej Pogacar, who is the favourite to win tomorrow’s men’s elite road race.
81km to go: Bredewold tries to organise her fellow breakaway riders into some sort of cohesive team effort but they don’t seem particularly interested and a quick look over her shoulder reveals the peloton to be no more than 100 metres behind them. One suspects she would have better luck trying to mind mice at a crossroads.
83km to go: Dutch rider Mischa Bredewold bridges the gap between the peloton and the breakaway, joining her compatriot Riejanne Markus in the escape party.
