Kevin Ledanois (France) came home with a thrilling victory in the men’s U23 World Championships in Richmond, Virginia after a well-timed attacked in the closing stages of the race. Despite a late surge from the bunch, the Frenchman was able to hold off Simone Consonni (Italy) and Anthony Turgis (France) who finished in second and third.

The race, as predicted, came down to the final lap of 10, with Italy and France well positioned before the final set of three climbs. A crash on Libby Hill from Belgian Nathan Van Hooydonck initially split the field but Ledanois made his move on the climb of 23rd Street.

He only had a small margin of a few seconds at the foot of Governor Street with Italy setting a frantic late chase. With 500 meters to go it looked as though Ledanois would be reeled in as Consonni and Gianni Moscon (Italy) gave chase but with Turgis sitting in and Ledanois just having enough in the tank, France were able to celebrate a rainbow jersey and a bronze medal.

Italy had ridden an intelligent race throughout with Davide Martinelli in two key moves. They had strength in depth in the finale too but the French had numbers as well and timed their offensive play to perfection.

Turgis and Ledanois swept by a fading Martinelli near the summit of Libby Hill and Ledanois, son of former rider Yvon Ledanois – now a team director at BMC Racing – surged clear. The 22-year-old only held a thin margin over the splinted field but the Bretagne - Séché Environnement rider ground his way up the final two climbs. He desperately sprinted out of the saddle when Italy started to close the gap and held off Consonni.

How it unfolded

Frantic, fast, frenetic. Everything you really expect from a U23 race at this level when there’s a rainbow jersey on the line.

Omer Goldstein (Israel), Jean Bosco Insengiyumva (Rwanda) and Joao Rodrigues (Portugal) attacked on the first lap and created the first break of the morning with Algeria’s Adil Barbari soon joining them.

Eddie Dubar (Ireland), Greg Daniel (USA) Paredes (Colombia), and Astafyev (Kaz) soon joined them but it wasn’t until a move that contained Dubar, Davide Martinelli (Italy), Oleg Zemlyakov (Kazakhstann), Maximillian Schachmann (Germany) and Jose Luis Rodriguez (Chile) formed did the race move into a more settled format.

Martinelli presence was clear from the start – contain the break but offer little in the way of assistance but with just over 50 kilometres to go the strain was beginning to tell with Dubar the first to fall from the back of the group on the ascent of Libby Hill.

The remaining four leaders had just a minute on the peloton with three laps of the circuit to go but an untimely mechanical for Martinelli took him out of the running at that stage.

With two laps remaining the French, Italians - now that Martinelli had dropped back – and the British took control with the break caught on the penultimate time up Libby Hill.

Søren Kragh Andersen (Denmark), a double stage winner in the Tour de l'Avenir crested the top alone and he built up a 10 second lead on the descent but the peloton were still bristling with strong legs and well-represented nations. The Dane was caught inside the final 10 kilometres with Martinelli, Nils Politt (Germany), Jakub Kaczmarek (Poland) striking clear on the now, slightly wet roads. They lacked the necessary cooperation and so it came down the final set of three hills.

Nathan Van Hooydonck (Belgium), Owain Doull (Great Britain) and ads Würtz Schmidt (Denmark) were all taken out by crashes with the French able to stay ahead of the falls. Over the top off Libby Hill Ledanois still had much to do but with Turgis present and Consonni admitting later that he lacked the confidence to attack earlier, the Frenchman stayed clear.

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