Road World Championships: Italian Lorenzo Finn powers to U23 road race victory with late solo attack

A general view of the peloton at the start of the 164.6km U23 men’s road race (Image credit: Getty Images)

As Finn commented, the race essentially boiled down to two very different halves. The first part saw the Belgian squad try to maintain such a strong hold on the bunch – not allowing any breaks up the road at all – that finally they ran out of energy and could not maintain their stranglehold. As a result, the Belgians’ opponents could break things open completely in the second half, and somewhat surprisingly given the first half of the race, end up fighting for success on the day.

Initially, though, things seemed to be going nobody’s way in the U23 road race but Belgium’s. It was true that after a flurry of early attacks, Danylo Kozoriz finally had the honour of being the first rider to carve open a real gap, the Ukraine U23 time trial champion gaining nearly 20 seconds at one point.

However, Belgium then made a major statement of intent as they set down a searing pace in the pack to promptly reel Kozoriz back in, and then clamped down on any further attempts to go clear at all.

Tim Rex and Team Belgium leads the peloton (Image credit: Getty Images)

The Belgians continued to make the running deep into the second hour of racing, too, with riders like future Visma-Lease a Bike pro Tim Rex particularly active in marshalling the pack. Amongst those opting for an early exit on a punishing course, with 3,600 metres of vertical climbing and in the face of such pressure, were the first solo attacker Kozoriz as well as Amanuel Tesfay (Ethiopia), Martin Barta (Czech Republic) and Samuel Couture (Canada). But they were far from being the only ones.

With 100 kilometres to go, less than 80 riders of 116 starters remained in the front group, as Belgium continued with its relentless early pace, courtesy of Rex, Aaron Dockx and some occasional shows of solidarity by the Polish national team.

But if the steady trickle of abandons was notable, so too were the lack of any major challenges to the Belgian’s hegemony as the race’s halfway point came and went.

Spanish riders Unai Ramos and Hector Alvarez on the cobbles (Image credit: Getty Images)

With 60 kilometres left, the status quo finally and abruptly crumbled, as Spain’s Héctor Álvarez managed to escape what was left of the pack with a strong solo move. A colossal effort by the Belgians – who else – enabled leading favourite Jarno Widar and his teammates briefly to bring the chase to within 10 bike lengths, yet the only long-term effect was actually for Halvor Dolven (Norway) to bridge across to Álvarez and strengthen the break ahead.

Álvarez still had the power to bring the lead duo up to fourth-last ascent of the critical Côte de Kimihurara, too, while behind yet more riders realised the Belgian’s stranglehold on the race was not as strong as it had previously seemed and also shot up the road.

Hector Alvarez (Spain) leads group on Côte de Kimihurara (Image credit: Getty Images)

Of these moves, six riders managed to make good on their bid for freedom – Finn, Álvarez, Mateusz Gajdulewicz (Poland), Marco Schrettl (Austria), Halvor Dolven (Norway) and Jan Huber (Switzerland).

The Belgians briefly regained enough reinforcements to start to chase properly again, and French then took over, but the lack of collaboration amongst the half dozen ahead created some important changes in the race narrative ahead as well. Firstly a pronounced acceleration on the Côte de Kigali Gold by Finn briefly sank Dolven.

Then on the Côte de Kimihurara, with 32 kilometres to go, Finn made a definitive, driving solo bid for glory. Joined by Huber of Switzerland at the top, the two leaders pounded through the finish line for the last two laps of the race with an advantage of 13 seconds on the remainder of the break – Álvarez, Gajdulewicz and Schrettl – whilst the 10-strong Belgian and French-led peloton, looking increasingly irrelevant, were over a minute back.

Marco Schrettl (Austria) leads Mateusz Gajdulewicz (Poland) in the chase (Image credit: Getty Images)

On the climbs, Finn’s elegant style looked far more comfortable than the labouring, shoulder-rocking Huber, but for all Schrettl insisted in driving the group of three chasers as hard as he could to try and bridge back across, the lead duo’s gap continued to tick upwards.

Remarkably, after all the groundwork the Belgians had done for Widar, the leading race favourite had lost contact, meaning the race was now almost certainly down to the five ahead.

Knowing Huber was at his weakest on the ascents, Finn cranked up the pressure even more on the Côte de Kimihurara, with the Swiss rider seemingly increasingly vulnerable. However, the duo were still together at the last lap and with a 40-second advantage on the chasing group, driven mainly by Gajdulewicz and Schrettl, the gold medal looked certain to be going Italy or, less probably, Switzerland’s way.

Keen to make good on his climbing superiority well before the finish line, Finn left Huber reeling on the last ascent of the Côte de Kigali, whilst Schrettl did the same behind on the remnants of the chasers.

Jan Huber (Switzerland) crosses the finish line for the silver medal (Image credit: Getty Images)

Finn seemingly struggled slightly as he came up Kimihurara for the final time, even asking the TV motorbike how many riders were chasing behind. But his advantage of 30 seconds or more was ample time for him to fire off an imaginary bow and arrow as he reached the line – a promise he’d made his training partner he’d do if he won, he said later – while Huber puffed and blew his way up the hill to an impressive silver.

Schrettl then duly held off his chasers for bronze, too, but as for the Belgians? After all that early effort, their first rider home was Aaron Dockx, 21st, and nearly nine minutes back. There’s a moral in there somewhere.