Denmark's Mads Pedersen wins the rainbow jersey

Mads Pedersen of Denmark is the new men’s road world champion after a rainswept race and shortened race in Yorkshire today.

Overnight rain meant that the route was altered to miss out the Buttertubs and Grinton Moor climbs on safety grounds.

The change of route, which shortened the race to 260 kilometres, meant that the selection that produced the riders who fought it out for the win came late on, with two and a half laps of the closing circuit in Harrogate remaining.

The five riders who got away included Mathieu van der Poel of the Netherlands, many people’s pick for the win today, but he was dropped with 12.5 kilometres left.

The group also included two Italian riders, Gianni Moscon, who was working for Matteo Trentin, and the Swiss rider Stefan Kung.

Moscon was tailed off with three and a half kilometres remaining, and Trentin seemed on his way to winning the rainbow jersey.

The Italian launched his sprint a couple of hundred metres from the line, but Pedersen responded to win convincingly, Trentin taking silver and Kung completing the podium.