Michael Kwiatkowski The World Champion

Last updated : 28 September 2014 By Covsupport News Service

Polish rider Michal Kwiatkowski is the UCI Elite Mens World Road Race Champion.

The final race of the Championship took place on Ponferrada in Spain, some 250kms out of Madrid and saw the riders having to take on 254.8kms of riding made up of fourteen laps of the 18.2km circuit for a total of 254.8km.

There was an early crash involving 2014 Tour De France winner Vincenzo Nibali before Zydrunas Savickas (Lithuania), Matija Kvasina (Croatia), Carlos Quintero (Colombia) and Oleksandr Polivoda (Ukraine) got into a break which was allowed to get 12.10 clear but was 9.50 clear with 113kms left.

The Poland team started to close down on the escapers as the British team which included Chris Froome were at the back of the field.

As the rain came down, the leaders split as they neared the summit of the Confederacion climb with 62kms left and were caught.

Tony Martin launched a solo raid going thirty seconds of an eleven rider chase group but was caught on top of the Mirador climb by the chasing group which was forty seconds ahead of the peloton. 

Visconti was the next to attack, chased by Peter Kennaugh, the former British Road Race Champion, but he was caught.

Polish rider Michael Kwiatkowski along with Cyril Gautier (France), Michael Valgren Andersen (Denmark), Vasil Kiryienka (Belarus) and Alessandro De Marchi (Italy) went off but was soon brought back.

Kwiatkowski attacked again with Andersen and De Marci before going off on his own with seven kilometres to go.

The Pole kept going and although Philippe Gilbert (Belgium), Matti Breschel (Denmark), Tony Gallopin (France), Greg Van Avermaet (Belgium), Simon Gerrans (Australia) and Alejandro Valverde (Spain) came back, Kwiatkowski was able to take the win in 6.29.07 a second ahead of Simon Gerrans (Australia) and Alejandro Valverde (Spain).

Kwiatkowski told CyclingNews.com: “I was feeling great on the last lap and I’m really grateful of my teammates, and all their work, “I was just going for the win I was trying to take risks because some were calculating and waiting the final climb.

“Two days ago I watched the U23 race and I knew it was possible to do this type of win, especially in the race. I just did my effort and had a little bit of a gap. This is just incredible.”