UCI Road World Championships 2021

The road

At the start

Flanders, and Van Aert's to lose

The Worlds return to Flanders for the seventh time: 268 kilometres from Antwerp to Leuven, across the flat and then round the Flandrien circuit and the town laps. Belgium have a rider who won a bunch sprint, a mountain stage and a time trial at the same Tour, and Wout van Aert starts as heavy a favourite as this race produces. Alaphilippe has rainbow bands to defend.

How it was won

1. 1174 km to go

   Bissegger blows it apart

   The peloton has already split once on an exposed flat section, forcing Italy to chase. Then Bissegger attacks on the Taymanstraat and drags out an exceptionally strong group drawn from a dozen nations.

2. 292 km to go

   The elastic snaps

   After 40km of furious racing the move is caught on the first Leuven circuit — and the race immediately breaks again. This time it sticks: Evenepoel, Van Baarle, Politt, Powless and a handful more go clear with 92km left, and Van der Poel is caught on the wrong side of the split.

3. 358 km to go

   Alaphilippe bridges

   On the longer climbs of the Flandrien circuit attack after attack fails. Only the world champion's acceleration gets across, with Van Aert stuck to his wheel and the rest of the contenders — minus Asgreen and Sagan — hauled over behind them.

4. 425 km to go

   Evenepoel empties himself

   The young Belgian sits on the front and simply drives, first to pull the leaders away from the peloton, then to smother every attack. He holds the pace until 25km from home — and when he finally cracks, Belgium's control cracks with him.

5. 517 km to go

   The Wijnpers, third time asking

   On a climb walled in by flags, Madouas sets him up and Alaphilippe attacks. Van Aert closes it himself. He attacks again, and again it fails. The third goes clear — and this time there is nobody left with the legs to answer a rider defending the rainbow jersey on Flemish roads.

6. 6At the line

   Alaphilippe keeps the rainbow bands

   The gap only grows across the last twenty kilometres, reaching 32 seconds by the line. Van Baarle takes silver, Valgren bronze, and a photo-finish denies Stuyven a medal in front of a Belgian crowd.

The result