Today in Plumelec (France), the 2016 European Championships produced some particularly exciting moments. The day before the races that will award tomorrow for the first time ever the Elite continental title, today’s races were for the Under 23s and the Elite Women (also the awarding of a title for the Under 23 category).
The new European Under 23 champion is the Bielorussian Aleksandr Riabushenko who beat the Belgian and the Italian Andrea Vendrame after a close fought battle.
After being dominated by Federico Olei (San Marino), Dusan Rajkovic (Serbia) and Piotr Brozyna (Poland), the race ended with a superb solo attack by the points race world champion, Jonathan Dibben (Great Britain) who lead the race for approximately thirty kilometres.
At about 25 kilometres from the finish, three riders launched an attack: Vincenzo Albanese (Italy), Artem Nych (Russia) and David Gaudu (France). The three leading men then worked together and gained approximately 30 seconds on the rest of the peloton. In the final moments, Albanese was the only one leading the peloton but it then caught him up a few metres from the finish.
In the Women’s events, the first European champion in history from the Elite category is the Dutch rider Anna van der Breggen who beat in the sprint the Pole Katarzyna Niewiadoma and the Italian Elisa Longo Borghini.
Less then fifty kilometres from the finish, eight athletes went into attack: Eraud (France), Pavlukhina (Azerbaijan), Vekemans (Belgium), Brand (Netherlands), Plichta (Poland), Fahlin (Sweden), Stricker (Italy) and Hanselmann (Switzerland). The peloton grouped together again 15 kilometres from the finish. Various riders then tried to attack, but were unsuccessful, right until the final sprint, won by the Olympic champion Anna van der Breggen. The Under 23 title was won by the Pole Niewiadoma, ahead of Cecile Uttrup (Denmark) and the French rider Severine Eraud.
Tomorrow we will witness the European Championships Road race in Plumelec – Morbihan – Brittany (France) for the Elite category that will battle it out for the European title for the first time in history. The start is scheduled at 10.50 am and riders will have to do 17 laps of the 13.7 kilometres circuit with the ‘côte de Cadoudal’ climb.
