Shocked Van Vleuten rides through pain to cap stellar year with road race gold

Everything changed with 30 kilometres to go. It was as if a switch had been flicked, a new act begun in the theatrical showing that was the elite women’s road race at the 2022 Road World Championships in Wollongong on Saturday. And, lingering patiently in the wings, the surprise star – the Netherlands’ Annemiek van Vleuten – waiting to steal the show yet again.

After ominous clouds had threatened all day, suddenly the rain started to fall. The home nation of Australia took the downpour as their cue: first Amanda Spratt, a two-time medallist at the world championships, then the team’s protected star Grace Brown, and finally workhorse rider Sarah Roy. None of the Australians could make their efforts stick on local roads, but it was the opening that other nations needed.

A race of control became a race of chaos. The peloton was split along the road – groups of two and three with big gaps between them, unlikely heroes sprinting away for their moment in the spotlight, pedigreed favourites at risk of slipping away.

And above it all, almost taunting the riders as the dramatic denouement played out below in the rain, a rainbow opened over the scenic vista of Wollongong on the south coast of New South Wales. A rainbow waiting to anoint the queen of women’s road cycling, the woman who will wear the hallowed rainbow jersey for the next 12 months.

Attack after attack followed. As the rain eased, the front groups came back together and the reduced selection entered into the final kilometre. Then, from nowhere, Van Vleuten did what Van Vleuten does. Nursing a fractured elbow, after a nasty crash in the mixed team time trial on Wednesday, which in turn followed a subpar performance in the women’s time trial last weekend, Van Vleuten