Armitstead sprints to elite women's title at World Road Cycling Championships

Britain's Lizzie Armitstead (right) celebrates winning gold with her team-mates in Richmond ©Getty Images

Britain’s Lizzie Armitstead sprinted to a thrilling victory in the women’s elite road race on the penultimate day of the International Cycling Union (UCI) Road World Championships in Richmond, United States.

Having successfully retained her Women’s World Cup title last month, in what is set to be its final edition before it is replaced by the Women’s WorldTour in 2016, Armitstead was always likely to be one of the favourites to claim the world champion’s rainbow jersey.

However, there were a number of occasions throughout the 130 kilometre race when the Briton's hopes of victory looked a distant prospect, particularly when a nine-woman breakaway moved away with 26km to the finish.

Among those in the move were the three-time Swedish national road race champion Emilia Fahlin, Amy Pieters of The Netherlands and the American home favourite Coryn Rivera.

With the lead having reached nearly a minute Armitstead attempted to close the gap with a lone attack but several climbs in the closing kilometres proved to be vital as the breakaway began to tire and their advantage over the peloton began to tumble.

Having caught the escapees, the peloton began to organise itself for a sprint finish and despite being the first to accelerate in the finishing straight, The Netherlands’ Anna van der Breggen was unable to hold off the challenge of Armitstead, who came through to take the victory in 3 hours 23min 56sec.

Armitstead’s triumph saw her become only the fourth British woman to win the world road race title after Beryl Burton, Mandy Jones and Nicole Cooke, with the latter securing the last win in the event in 2008.

“It’s a dream come true, the rainbow jersey is the most special thing in cycling,” Armitstead said after her victory.

Lizzie Armitstead became only the fourth British woman to win the road race world title ©Getty Images

“It was a complicated race, I had to make sure I kept to my plan and went for it on the climbs as hard as I could at the end.

“It was a strange sprint, but I kept them on the left-hand side and it went perfectly.”

“I couldn’t believe I’d done it, I didn’t have time to celebrate because I was going for the line all the way.”

Van der Breggen secured her second silver medal of the Championships, having also finished as the runner-up in the time trial, while American success continued with Megan Guarnier completing the podium.

The men’s junior race was disrupted by several crashes during an eight-lap circuit but unlike the elite women’s race a breakaway group were able to succeed.

Five men had moved clear with two laps remaining of the course but the number quickly rose to 14 as they reached 25km to go.

Austria’s Felix Gall was able to make the decisive move of the race as he launched a solo attack inside the final five kilometres and held off the challenge of France’s Clement Betouigt-Suire to take gold in a time of 3:11:09.

A second further adrift of Gall and Betouigt-Suire was Denmark’s Rasmus Pedersen, who secured the bronze medal ahead of Switzerland’s Reto Muller.