Remco Evenepoel (Belgium) on Thursday provided further evidence as to why Quick-Step Floors signed the 18-year-old from the Junior ranks, riding away from the best in the UCI Road World Championships junior road race with 19km to go and holding off the splintered peloton to take his second rainbow jersey of the week.
After a dominating performance in Tuesday's time trial, Evenepoel went into Thursday's road race as the hands-down favourite for the win, but his hopes suffered an early blow when he went down in a large crash that started near the front of the field.
A slow rear-wheel change didn't help the young Belgian's chances, but he persevered through the adversity and chased furisouly through the caravan and splintered bunch, eventually regaining the first case group and marshalling the effort to bring back two escapees.
In the end, Evenepoel dropped all challengers, with Marius Mayrhofer (Germany) the last to hang on and finish second 1:25 in arrears.
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