Lizzie Armitstead wins world championship

Worlds wrap up Sunday with the elite men’s circuit race in downtown Richmond. Physically I was in the best shape of my career and then you have to have lady luck on your side and she was with me today.

Looking as if she was trying to save her legs, Armitstead stalled as the leaders tackled the gradual, uphill, finish straight, waiting for someone else to take the initiative; eventually Anna van der Breggen surged forwards, with Armitstead taking up position in her slipstream before launching her final effort in the middle of the road to hold off Van der Breggen by half a bike length.

The road jersey now belongs to Armitstead, the fourth British rider to win it.

“It’s really odd, I can’t believe I have won, I’m still in shock”.

Elizabeth Armitstead, of Britain, puts her hand to her mouth as she crosses the finish line to win the UCI Women’s Road World Championship Cycling race in Richmond, Va., Saturday, September 26, 2015.

In Ponferrada, Spain, past year the tables were turned with Armitstead in the lead pack when she was overtaken just four kilometers from the finish.

“It was attack and sprint”, Armitstead said.

“No disrespect to Marianne Vos, she is the greatest cyclist of our time but maybe the media needs to catch up a little bit and ask me about other rivals”, glared Armitstead.

“I was getting quite frustrated by the racing, wondering when it would start”, she said.

OTLEY cyclist Lizzie Armistead was crowned women’s road race world champion at the weekend as she followed in the tyre tracks of Leeds cycling legend Beryl Burton. The course was quite demanding.

“It was such a unusual sprint for me because I was on the front leading it out”.

The Yorkshire rider’s last attack, on the final climb, put some riders out of contention, but coming over the top towards the finish line, she had not managed to distance all of her rivals. I really was going all the way for that line.

“I took the decision to lead it on and wait for the rush to come, but it never came”. The group that included young American rider Coryn Rivera worked in harmony to build an advantage of more than a minute heading into the final lap, only to be swept up after the Dutch team began driving the rest of the peloton as they approached the cobbled climb up Libby Hill.

Guarnier came from well back in the group with a massive sprint to finish third, just ahead of Italian sprinter Elisa Longo Borghini and Emma Johansson of Sweden.