Thor Hushovd made cycling history on Sunday when he claimed Norway's first-ever men's elite title at the world road race cycling championships in Australia. Hushovd, the Norwegian champion, dominated a bunch sprint at the end of a thrilling 267.2 km race, beating Denmark's Matti Breschel and Australia's Allan Davis.
Breschel went one better than his bronze in 2008 to pick up the silver medal while Davis gave the hosts a consolation bronze, their second consecutive medal after Cadel Evans's triumph last year.
Hushovd, a one-day classics specialist who is known for his ability to climb and finish well on uphill sprints, waited until the final 150 metres of the 750-metre home straight before unleashing a powerful sprint. Afterwards he could not quite believe his achievement. "It's hard to understand I've won the worlds. It's a dream, it's unreal," said Hushovd, who becomes the first rider from the Scandinavian country to win the coveted rainbow jersey.
The elite men's event broke with tradition by starting and finishing in two different locations, and shortly after the start in Melbourne a five-man attack formed.
The group contained no contenders but the peloton had to up the pace to bring down a lead of more than 20 minutes. If they had been lapped by the leaders on the 15.9km circuit in Geelong, they would have been disqualified.
Thankfully for race organisers the potential disaster was avoided and the star-studded chasing peloton continued to increase the pace and eventually pull in the tiring leaders. With five laps to go Italian Matteo Tosatto's acceleration on the main climb split the group of favourites, leaving Hushovd, Swiss contender Fabian Cancellara and several other contenders behind.
Comments
Comments are closed.