European Championships 2022

The road

At the start

Munich, and a sprinters' European title

The European title has gone to Italy four years running, and Italy arrive with Filippo Ganna and Matteo Trentin to make it five. Against them is nearly every fast man on the continent: Fabio Jakobsen for the Netherlands, Mads Pedersen with Michael Mørkøv to launch him, Arnaud Démare for France, Tim Merlier for Belgium, Alexander Kristoff for Norway. 208 kilometres, then five flat laps of the Olympiapark.

How it was won

1. 1188 km to go

   Two men against the sprinters

   Lukas Pöstlberger and Silvan Dillier go clear out of Murnau am Staffelsee and settle in for the long haul to Munich. Nobody lets them past two minutes; everybody knows how this ends.

2. 2114 km to go

   Italy try the one real climb

   Around halfway, on the drag at Eurasburg, Matteo Trentin drives the Italian team in the only serious attempt to break the day's script. Fabio Jakobsen — a year and a half after Katowice — holds firm in the heat.

3. 365 km to go

   Onto the Munich circuit

   The race reaches the Olympiapark for five laps of a flat 13km loop. Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Norway form an unspoken alliance on the front: this finishes together.

4. 426 km to go

   The escape is done

   With a shade over two laps left, Pöstlberger and Dillier sit up, bump fists and wait for the bunch. Their day's work is over; the sprinters' teams take the road.

5. 54 km to go

   Bissegger tears at the script

   Stefan Bissegger launches with 3.5km to go and gets a kilometre of hope out of it before the Dutch team reels him in for Jakobsen.

6. 6At the line

   Jakobsen out-guns them all

   Ganna and Trentin launch the Italian train, Van Lerberghe derails it for Merlier, and Jakobsen comes off the Belgian's wheel to win going away from Démare. Italy's four-year run of European titles ends in Munich.

The result