Rui Costa The New World Champion

Last updated : 29 September 2013 By Covsupport News Service

Portugal's Rui Costa will be wearing the Rainbow Jersey for the next year after winning the Elite Mens Road Race at the World Championships in Florence.

This week of "The Worlds" ended with the Elite Mens Road Race - a punishing 272.26kms from Lucca to Florence and a course which saw 106kms of road before ten 16.6km circuits taking in the Fiesole and Via Salviati climbs.

Bartosz Huzarski (Poland) and Rafaa Chtioui (Tunisia) were the first to attack, fourteen kilometres after the start on a very rainy day and they were soon joined by Yonder Godoy (Venezuela), Matthias Brandle (Austria) and Jan Barta (Czech Republic).

They took a lead of 5.50 over a peloton led by Mark Cavendish who was working for Team's Sky Chris Froome in a British team that was minus Jonathan Tiernan-Locke who was told by UCI that there is a potential discrepancy in his biological passport data.

As the race entered the City of Florence, the lead had gone out to 7.44 whilst a group of thirty riders including Sir Bradley Wiggins were a further thirty seconds off the back of the peloton which still had Cavendish and fellow Brit Luke Rowe leading the way.

Crashes on wet roads started to happen and Dan Martin and Nicholas Roche of Ireland, Cadel Evans of Australia and Vuelta Espana winner Chris Horner were all forced to abandon a race which which saw all the British riders include Chris Froome withdraw.

Italy chased down the escapers who were now 2.22 ahead with seven laps remaining.

Two laps later and only Jan Barta (Czech Republic) and Bartosz Huzarski (Poland) were in front. They continued to lead despite the efforts of Philippe Gilbert, who had a full team

Huzarski dropped Barta and was thirty seconds in front of Visconti before Vincenzo Nibali crashed with 35 kms to go.

Twelve kilometres on and the race was back together with the Belgians leading what consisted of a peloton.

On the penultimate climb and all the big guns left in the race were watching each other. Scarponi and Nibali and then Rodriquez attacked with a five second lead over Rui Costa, Uran and Valverde.

Joaquim Rodriquez built an eleven second lead but Rui Costa closed it down and inside the two kilometre to go mark, the Portuguese rider went after the Spaniard.

Costa caught Rodriquez and sat in his wheel before jumping and taking a famous victory in a time of 7.25.44.ahead of Spaniards Joaquim Rodriguez and Alejandro Valverde third of 61 finishers.

Result

1 Rui Costa (Portugal)

2 Joaquim Rodriguez Oliver (Spain)   
3 Alejandro Valverde (Spain)  
4 Vincenzo Nibali (Italy)   
5 Andriy Grivko (Ukraine)  
6 Peter Sagan (Slovakia)  
7 Simon Clarke (Australia)   
8 Maxim Iglinskiy (Kazakhstan)   
9 Philippe Gilbert (Belgium)   
10 Fabian Cancellara (Switzerland)