October 01, 2018 – Rally Cycling’s Sara Poidevin climbed her way to 14th place at the UCI Road World Championships in Innsbruck, Austria this weekend. With no separate category for the under-23 women, Poidevin claimed the unofficial world title while competing in the elite race for Team Canada alongside her Rally Cycling teammates Katherine Maine and Sara Bergen.
Held over the hilliest parcours in recent World Championship’s memory, the peloton was decimated on each passage of the eight km Igls climb. Eight riders escaped the peloton on the finishing circuits and Poidevin sprinted into Innsbruck for 14th place.
An untimely crash leading into the day’s first major climb left many riders scrambling. Poidevin was among its victims, which included newly-crowned World Time Trial Champion Annemiek van Vleuten (Netherlands).
After a long season, it was a good feeling for Poidevin to close things out with a world-class performance in Austria over such a demanding course.
In the elite men’s race, Rob Britton spent over 180 km off the front of the race before being reeled in by the obliterated peloton. Former Rally Cycling athlete Mike Woods, also representing Team Canada, leaped out of the pack on the final climb of Höttinger Höll. With gradients approaching 28%, Woods pulled Alejandro Valverde (Spain) and Romain Bardet (France) off the front. In the sprint for the coveted rainbow jersey, Woods sprinted to third.
EW RR Results here.