ANNEMIEK VAN VLEUTEN will spend 2023, her final season, in the world champion’s rainbow jersey after achieving the greatest win of her long and storied career on Saturday at the world road championships, held this year in Wollongong, Australia.

With less than a kilometre of the rain-hit 164km to race, The 39-year-old was sitting in an unpromising 12th place. 

But, overcoming an elbow fracture sustained three days earlier, the Dutch great won with an attack in the last 600m that none of the leading bunch were able to respond to.

The 2019 world champion and reigning Olympic world time trial winner claimed cycling’s triple crown this year when she landed the Italian, French and Spanish tours. But for Van Vleuten, who retires at the end of next season, what she did on Saturday was extra special. “This is the best victory of my whole career,” she said.

After an unimpressive seventh in last weekend’s women’s time trial, Van Vleuten crashed at the very start in Wednesday’s mixed team relay and sustained the fracture — she described the pain during Saturday’s race as “hell.” 

And she seemed destined to serve only as a helper for the Dutch team until the final stages of the road race, when her team mates Ellen van Dijk and Marianne Vos faded and Van Vleuten seized her moment.

“I was such a committed domestique today [for team mate Marianne Vos] that I was not thinking of my chances — only in the last kilometre,” she said.

Her win continues the domination of the Dutch women, who have finished on the road race podium at all but three of the last 20 worlds.

New Zealand’s Niamh Fisher-Black won the under-23 title, finishing just a second behind Van Vleuten in 12th place overall, and Pfeiffer Georgi took second place in that category, adding to a good week for Britain’s youngsters after Leo Hayter won bronze in the men’s under-23 time trial and Zoe Backstedt and Joshua Tarling won junior time trial golds.

Backstedt went on to celebrate her 18th birthday on Saturday by turning the junior road event into a one-woman race, retaining the title she won last year in Leuven. 

In wet and cold conditions, she cycled away from the peloton with a solo attack at 10 kilometres and stayed clear for the remaining 57km to win by more than two minutes. Eglantine Rayer of France was second, ahead of Dutch rider Nienke Vinke.

Backstedt is currently world junior champion in cyclocross and, in track cycling, in the madison event, making a historic quadruple with her time trial and road race titles.