Favourite Marianne Vos beaten out by Giorgia Bronzini for the gold
Italian Giorgia Bronzini won the Elite Women’s road race ahead of Marianne Vos and Sweden’s Emma Johansson on Saturday.
Vos’ Dutch team seemed stacked for the UCI Road World Championships. The 23-year-old team leader has been one of the top female cyclists since she turned pro in 2006. That year, she was the World Champion
at 19 years old, and had planned to take her second gold medal on Saturday and wear the rainbow jersey in 2011, but was topped by Bronzini.
“If I had sprinted later, then the escapees Judith Arndt and Nicole Cooke would have sprinted for the gold, “ said Vos to Dutch paper
De Telegraaf. “So I took off at 300 metres from the finish and I felt the Italian Giorgia Bronzini coming up. I had no choice.”
The Dutch cyclist was already a history-maker before the race. She remaims the only cyclist ever to have won gold medals in road, track and cyclocross, and now she has set a record as the only female road
racer to have won a medal five years in a row, surpassing the previous record-setter, French rider Jeanne Longo.
“It's obviously nice to ride Longo to out of the books. I won silver, but of course I came here for gold.”
Vos dominated women’s mountain-biking as well this season, winning three of the six World Cups, as well as successfully defending her title at the MTB World Championships. She has led the Dutch team in
every Road World Championship since she won in 2006, the first year she competed. From 2007 to 2009, she won the silver medal every time.
“I've been very pleased with my season so far, with my form getting slightly better to the end of the season,” said Vos. “For me it was important to be in a good shape all year to be able to race for the
win in every race we did with our team Nederland Bloeit.”
She raced as the overwhelming favourite and described the Dutch team as the strongest one in years, with some of the season’s top performers including Adrie Visser, sprinter Kirsten
Wild and Vos’ usual teammate and support rider Annamiek Van Vleuten. The latter was supposed to be Vos’ lead-out rider for the road race but punctured and fell back, leaving the team leader alone at the end of the race.
“Annemiek has had a great season, with good results from March until now,” said Vos. “It's nice we could take advantage of each other in many races, and help each other to the win
… Anne did not come back and I did not hear until later that she had punctured. Too bad, she might have played a role in the sprint.”
Vos herself has been leaving her mark all across the road-race calendar, starting with her victory in the Trofeo Binda in March, as well as stage wins in the Giro d’Italia, the
Route de France and the Giro della Toscana. More recently, she won the Dutch time-trial championship and the Holland Ladies Tour.
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