Worlds: Pirrone doubles up with junior road race title

Elena Pirrone completed a remarkable double at the 2017 World Championships, winning the junior women’s road race to add to the individual time trial gold medal she won earlier in the week.

The 18-year-old Italian forged clear of the already-reduced peloton on the penultimate descent of Salmon Hill, with some 30 kilometres remaining, and was never seen again.

Emma Norsgaard Jorgensen (Denmark) took second place, leading home a 13-rider chase group that lacked the collaboration and firepower to catch Pirrone in the closing kilometres, while Letizia Paternoster claimed the bronze medal to make it a near-perfect race for Italy.

The 76.4km route for the junior women’s race was based on four laps of a 19.1km circuit in Bergen, with the climb of Salmon Hill – 1.4km long with an average gradient of 6.5 per cent – central in terms of its positioning on the course and its importance to the outcome.

Norsgaard Jorgensen enjoyed some time off the front on the opening lap, and the bunch started to thin on the second, but it was the third lap where the race-defining moves were made.

The Australian Madeleine Fasnacht produced the most promising of a flurry of attacks, but she fell away on the descent, while Pirrone did just the opposite. With two teammates in what was now a chasing group of 16 riders, it was the perfect situation for the Italians, as Pirrone hit the flat with a lead of 15 seconds and kept it as she took the bell for the final lap.

In the first chase group were: Letizia Paternoster, Nicole D’Agostini (Italy), Sophie Wright, Pfeiffer Georgi (Great Britain), Alena Petchenko, Maria Novolodskaya (Russia), Madeleine Fasnacht (Australia), Hannah Ludwig (Germany), Anne-Sophie Harsch (Luxembourg), Simone Boilard (Canada), Olha Kulynych (Ukraine), Evita Muzic, Jade Wiel, Clara Copponi (France), Caroline Bohe, Emma Norsgaard Jorgensen (Denmark).

The gap was as low as 12 seconds at one point, but on the approach to the final ascent it grew out to 40 seconds as the group looked at each other. Ludwig waved her hand sarcastically, and she was right – they were saying goodbye to Pirrone and the gold medal.

Pirrone’s lead had halved by the top of the climb but once again she descended better than anyone, and had enough left in the tank for the flat 5km run to the line in Bergen. Norsgaard Jorgensen once again accelerated in pursuit, but otherwise there wasn’t a coordinated chase, with the French conspicuous by their absence from the front of the group despite having three riders there.

Pirrone, though, was worth every carat of her gold medal, and had enough time in the home straight to sit up and revel in what has been a magical week. 

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