European Championships 2018

The road

At the start

Glasgow, sixteen laps, and rain

The European title is decided on sixteen laps of an undulating city circuit in Glasgow, 230 kilometres in all, and the rain is already coming and going. On paper it is a course for the fast men, which is why Alexander Kristoff is here to defend his title and Peter Sagan lines up in the rainbow jersey. Belgium bring Wout van Aert and the Netherlands Mathieu van der Poel — two men who rather like wet tarmac.

How it was won

1. 1220 km to go

   Seven go clear on lap one

   Sixteen laps of a wet Glasgow circuit, and seven riders are away almost from the flag — Krizek, Thalmann, Černý, Tzortzakis, Neilands, Räim and McCarthy. Räim is dropped inside the first hour and six carry on.

2. 286 km to go

   Sagan climbs off

   The rain stops, the wind gets up, and the favourites start turning up at the back of the field. Alexander Kristoff, the defending champion, is chasing in a group with Peter Sagan — and with 86 kilometres left the world champion abandons.

3. 355 km to go

   The winning move, 55km out

   Belgium charge the climb again with Xandro Meurisse on the front, and ten riders come clear of a bunch already whittled to sixty. Belgium, Italy, France and the Netherlands each have a man in it. The peloton does the arithmetic and sits up.

4. 429 km to go

   Onto the penultimate lap

   Twenty-nine kilometres to go and the ten have 2:57 in hand — behind them the race is finished. The rain returns inside the last twenty, and on the bell lap the leaders finally begin looking at one another.

5. 510 km to go

   Lammertink slides out

   Nine and a half kilometres from the line Maurits Lammertink loses the front wheel on a soaking corner, fights it, hits the barriers and takes others down with him. Five are left in front — Trentin, Van Aert, Van der Poel, Cimolai and Herrada — and only Meurisse claws his way back on.

6. 6At the line

   The six-up sprint

   Cimolai has tried, Van Aert has closed him down, and now nobody will move: at 500 metres the six are still together with everything staked on the sprint. Van Aert opens it and Trentin comes off his wheel and is simply gone — eight months after a cracked rib and a fractured spine, the Italian pulls on the blue jersey of Europe.

The result