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news
World Championships Medrisio logoCadel Evans wins World Road Race Championship
A disappointing season ended on a superb high note for Cadel Evans in Switzerland today, when the Australian powered away from the rest of the day's decisive break at the foot of the final climb of an exhausting 262-kilometre ride to become the first ever Australian to take the world title and the 2009 season on a high by claiming the rainbow jersey.
The win has a double significance for the 32-year-old Silence-Lotto rider, who lives in this very part of Switzerland with his Italian wife, Chiara, during the European season, and who will now defend his title next year in Geelong, his home town back in Australia.
The Russian Alexandr Kolobnev, runner-up in Stuttgart two years ago, was second and Joaquin Rodriguez of Spain third. Home favourite Fabian Cancellara finished fifth just behind OLympic Champion Samuel Sanchez as they closed on Kolobnev and Rodriguez. It was Cancellara who instigated the final dramatic moves of the day, forcing the pace to chase down Alexander Vinokourov on the final lap and relentlessly attacking the rest of the leading group. At one point he looked to have ridden them off his wheel, but the three Spanish riders in the break, Sanchez, Valverde and Rodriguez, in particular refused to be shaken off.
At the bottom of the penultimate descent the group were all back together sweeping through a section of dual carriageway on the outside lanes when Rodriguez spotted a gap in the central reservation and nipped through to instantly give himself a lead on the other – the only rider to follow him was Evans and Kolobnev soon bridged across too, leaving Cancellara and the rest gapped. With 4Km to go Evans went for it and the others could not respond.
Top British finisher was Steve Cummins in 52nd place with Roger Hammond coming in another 40 places back on him. The rest of the British team failed to complete the course, with team leader David Millar abandoning two laps from the end, presumably suffering the effects of a crash in the early stages of the race.
road.cc's founder and first editor, nowadays to be found riding a spreadsheet. Tony's journey in cycling media started in 1997 as production editor and then deputy editor of Total Bike, acting editor of Total Mountain Bike and then seven years as editor of Cycling Plus. He launched his first cycling website - the Cycling Plus Forum at the turn of the century. In 2006 he left C+ to head up the launch team for Bike Radar which he edited until 2008, when he co-launched the multi-award winning road.cc - finally handing on the reins in 2021 to Jack Sexty. His favourite ride is his ‘commute’ - which he does most days inc weekends and he’s been cycle-commuting since 1994. His favourite bikes are titanium and have disc brakes, though he'd like to own a carbon bike one day.
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5 comments
Another shouting Evans on here
My mate works for the company (owner of Silence brand)that sponsors Cadel. He was busy working in a power point presentation to take to Belgium tomorrow and missed the race!
He didn't know until I texted him this morning.
I couldn't believe it when Rodriguez went through that gap, my first thought was that he was braking some rule because no one seemed to follow him. Fair play to Evans his finish was so strong and credit to Cancellara for making the final stages exciting.
Yeah, no doubt, full respect to Cadel for an awesome ride.
He has always been good at dishing the hurt on himself, but he was really in a special world of pain for the last 3 km.
To be fair, he deserves a good result for once.
Ditto, I was screaming at him in the last 2k's.
What a great attack and brilliant ride to the finish. Cannot accuse him of wheelsucking today.
Never thought I would be cheering Cadel on think my Missus thought I really had lost the plot.