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Van der Poel (Netherlands) was the strongest by a significant margin on an attritional day in Glasgow over a technical and wet world championships course.
The popular Dutchman overcame a crash while on his winning move to solo clear to a memorable world championship title. With time up his sleeves to celebrate on the way to the line, van der Poel claimed the title one minute and 37 seconds ahead of second-placed Wout van Aert (Belgium). Tadej Pogačar (Slovenia) rounded out the podium in third.
There were uncountable attacks over the course of the twisting and technical circuit that made up the final 140 kilometres of the Elite Men’s Road Race. But, it was just the one attack that mattered in the end as van der Poel powered clear with 22 kilometres remaining in the 271-kilometre race.
The three-time cyclocross world champion and nine-time Tour de France stage winner described the victory as meaning "everything."
“It was one of the biggest goals I had left," van der Poel said.
"To win it today is amazing. It almost completes my career in my opinion. For me, it’s maybe the biggest victory on the road. I cannot imagine yet riding in the rainbows a year.”
An early breakaway of nine riders included Australian Matt Dinham, with the 23-year-old getting himself up the road with a move that got a maximum advantage of eight and a half minutes. The entire race came to a halt for over 50 minutes as protestors blocked the course
Plenty of corners and punchy climbs saw the peloton thin down dramatically until it was just the elite riders expected pre-race to be contesting the final podium left in the mix. Joining them was the unlikely Australian figure of Dinham, present in the early breakaway.
Dinham teamed up with countryman Simon Clarke in an attempt to match it with some of the biggest names in the world of road cycling.
There were attacks from all the stars of the sport, with van der Poel, Tadej Pogačar, Remco Evenepoel (Belgium), Wout van Aert, Alberto Bettiol (Italy) and Mads Pedersen (Denmark) all regulars in the attacks that flew off the front of the front group.
Van der Poel picked his moment to launch his own attack, breaking clear with 22 kilometres to go up a climb and immediately getting a gap. He powered away to a commanding lead but fell heavily on a slippery corner.
He immediately remounted but had his buckle hanging from his shoe. He took quick action in ripping it off and throwing it away.
His advantage was cut to just 20 seconds but the Dutchman was soon back to pushing out his gap to Pogačar, van Aert and Pedersen as they chased grimly behind.
Van der Poel soloed in for the victory, celebrating.
“I knew this was the hardest moment of the race especially because you had a downhill and then immediately the next bump," van der Poel said of his decisive attack.
"I felt pretty strong in the end and I noticed that the race was a bit on the limit. Then when I went away I didn’t expect to have a gap immediately but then when I saw nobody was following it gave me wings and I was just flying around the course until the crash.”
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UCI Road World Championships 2023 S2023 Ep1 - Men's Elite Road Race
Staying calm and composed were key to holding on to his advantage and extending it once more.
“I was pretty pissed at myself, but it’s not that I was taking risks in my opinion, I just had to stay on the bike and I didn’t manage! It was super slippery sometimes," van der Poel said.
“If this had cost me the world title I would have not slept for a couple of days.”
