Newly crowned world champion Anna van der Breggen says she can finally relax and just enjoy cycling in her rainbow jersey after pulverizing the opposition at Innsbruck on Saturday to achieve her goal of winning the women’s road race.
The 28-year-old Dutch rider said she had based her whole season around the 156.2km world championships road race, and it showed as a she beat Australia’s Amanda Spratt into second by 3 minutes, 42 seconds as Italy’s Tatiana Guderzo took bronze almost another 2 minutes behind.
“What happened is that Anna van der Breggen happened,” Guderzo said after the race.
“She was unbeatable,” said the Italian, who was competing at her 16th world championships.
Spratt was in a similar mood, saying she had not minded losing to the “deserved champion.”
“She was totally on another level,” the silver medalist said.
Van der Breggen, the Olympic and European champion from 2016, broke down in tears briefly on crossing the line to wild cheers.
“Until the finish line, I never believed it,” she said. “World championships are so hard to win.”
“I have been chasing this jersey all season and have raced fewer races and spent so much time training here that I’ve started to get to know people,” she said.
“They have put on a great world championships and I just love Innsbruck,” said Van der Breggen, who finished second in the time trial to compatriot Annemiek van Vleuten on Tuesday.
The winner made her move after the Australian team had chased down an earlier attack to get Spratt into the lead group.
Van der Breggen sustained her tempo to drop everyone except Spratt, who slowed in the final kilometer to leave the Dutchwoman to go it alone for almost two full, 23km-long laps of Innsbruck.
“Me and Annemiek were racing as joint leaders, but she fell heavily and was in pain,” Van der Breggen said. “So she led me in and then at the hill, I just went for it.”
“I ate as much as I could, drank as much as I could and went as fast as I could all the way, because you just never know,” she added.
The Italian veteran Guderzo described the race as horribly difficult.
“We suffer as much as the men,” she said. “Which is why I will continue to fight for equal status with them.”
SSC Napoli’s Italian Serie A title hopes suffered a late setback on Sunday when they were held to a 2-2 draw at home against Genoa, setting up a thrilling season finale with closest rivals Inter just one point behind. The hosts remain top with 78 points, holding a slim lead over Inter, who won 2-0 at Torino earlier on Sunday, with two rounds remaining. To make matters worse for Napoli, midfielder Stanislav Lobotka, struggling with an ankle injury, was forced off just minutes after the match began. Scott McTominay delivered a perfect pass into the box where Romelu Lukaku got
Harry Kane opened the scoring ahead of lifting his first career silverware as Bayern Munich beat Borussia Moenchengladbach 2-0, with veteran Thomas Mueller playing his last home game for the club. Bayern officially won the title on May 4 when defending champions Bayer Leverkusen were held to a 2-2 draw at Freiburg, but were presented with the Bundesliga shield in front of their home fans at full-time. Dripping wet after being showered with beer by teammates, Kane said the title win was “an incredible feeling,” and hoped it would be “the first of many.” “It’s been lot of hard work, a lot of
Taiwanese e-sports veteran Lin “ET” Chia-hung yesterday successfully defended his King of Fighters XV title at this year’s Evolution Championship Series: Japan (EVO Japan), securing his second consecutive championship. Lin claimed victory with a 3-1 win over Japanese pro gamer “mok” in the grand final, repeating his earlier 3-1 win against the same opponent in the winners’ final. The 40-year-old earned a ￥1 million (US$6,897) cash prize at the two-day tournament, which drew 294 competitors. Mok, Lin’s toughest rival in the bracket, took home ￥400,000 as runner-up. Lin remains undefeated in match sets against mok in King of Fighters XV, holding a 10-0 record,
Batting great Virat Kohli yesterday announced his immediate retirement from Test cricket, just days before India name their squad for a tour to England. Kohli, who scored 9,230 runs in 123 matches at an average of 46.85, posted his decision on Instagram five days after India captain Rohit Sharma called time on his own Test career. Since making his debut in 2011, Kohli struck 30 hundreds and 31 fifties with a highest score of 254 not out, mainly batting at number four in the order. “It’s been 14 years since I first wore the baggy blue in Test cricket,” the
RSS