There was controversy before the UCI Road World Championships over the exclusion of the dreaded Höll climb from the elite women's road race, but the Innsbruck course proved hard enough to shatter the peloton, with Dutch woman Anna van der Breggen crushing the competition to win solo by nearly four minutes over Australia's Amanda Spratt. Italian Tatiana Guderzo came in well behind for bronze.
Van der Breggen countered an attack by Netherlands teammate Annemiek van Vleuten on the 8km climb to Igls with 40km to go, then rode down and dropped the breakaway riders ahead. As she and Spratt engaged in a 38km individual pursuit, the battle for bronze played out behind, with Guderzo finally getting away with 15km to go.
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