Great Britain's Nicole Cooke has added the Senior World Road Race championship to her Olympic title after winning a sprint against former World Road Race champions Marianne Vos (Holland) and Judith Arndt (Germany).
Nicole is the first Great Britain rider to win a Senior World Women’s Road Race championship since Mandy Jones was victorious at the 1982 championships in Goodwood (southern England) and like all Nicole’s wins, it was done in style.
After good team work during the race by the Great Britain riders who could been seen a lot on the TV at the front of the race action, Nicole finished the race off beautifully by getting herself into a six rider break that formed on the last of the eight laps of the hilly course.
With two Germans and two Swedish riders in the break on the last lap, both Cooke and Vos were going to have to fight hard to over come the odds they were up against but Cooke is a fighter extraordinaire and in the sprint for the title, she used all her vast experience and sprinting ability to get past the very rapid Vos and claim the World title for herself.
The race in Varese begun under cloudy skies with 138 riders, one down on the expected 139 after the withdrawal of Ina Teutenburg of Germany. In the early stages of the race, a break of around thirteen riders went clear including GB's Lizzie Armitstead.
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