UCI Road World Championships 2016

The road

How it was won

1. 1200 km to go

   Belgium open the trapdoor

   With 200km still to run the desert wind gets up, and as the race swings back toward Doha the Belgians and Dutch put the hammer down. Echelons form, a trapdoor opens in the middle of the bunch, and Kittel, Ewan, Bouhanni and Greipel are all gone in a matter of minutes.

2. 2192 km to go

   Carnage behind the split

   In the scramble, Luke Durbridge drops his chain and is struck from behind as he moves across for a wheel. Fernando Gaviria goes down with him and is left sitting on the barriers with a suspected broken collarbone, his Worlds over in an instant.

3. 3143 km to go

   The breakaway is swallowed

   With 143km still to run, the front echelon absorbs the day's escapees. Twenty-six riders now hold the race, and the gap to everything behind only grows.

4. 4107 km to go

   Onto the Pearl

   The lead group swings onto the finishing circuit with a minute in hand, Belgium and Italy driving. Much of the Great Britain squad, caught out in the desert, will arrive here more than ten minutes down and be pulled from the race.

5. 531 km to go

   Terpstra tries the ambush

   Niki Terpstra and Tom Leezer throw the only real punches of the circuits, but the Dutch attacks never get clear of a group that knows exactly what it wants.

6. 615 km to go

   Belgium set it up

   Onto the last lap of the Corniche and Belgium take control at the front, shutting the race down for the bunch sprint that will decide the rainbow jersey.

7. 7At the line

   Sagan wins the lottery sprint

   Sagan and Cavendish shadow each other into the last 300 metres and then choose opposite sides. Sagan goes right, through the gap Nizzolo leaves against the barriers, and finds clean air; Cavendish goes left, is stalled behind Matthews and has to stop pedalling with 150 metres to go. Peter Sagan becomes the first man in nearly four decades to defend the elite men's road title.

The result