Balsamo to Vallières: Five years of rainbow glory in the women's World Championships

The Dutch team dictated the race in Flanders, attacking with Annemiek van Vleuten to thin the field. Yet Italy remained calm. Elisa Balsamo, then 23, waited patiently as her teammates shielded her from the storm. On the final lap in Leuven, Italy hit the front with a perfect lead-out. 

Vos sat on Balsamo’s wheel, ready to pounce, but when the Italian launched her sprint she held firm. By half a bike length, Balsamo upset the favourite and ended four years of Dutch domination. Tears flowed for Vos, while Balsamo claimed Italy’s first women’s rainbow in a decade.

Few expected her even to start. A fractured elbow left Annemiek van Vleuten in agony and cast her as a helper, not a contender. Yet as the race splintered on Wollongong’s climbs, she clung on. A dozen riders reached the final kilometre together. 

Then Van Vleuten struck, launching a surprise attack inside the last 500 metres. The hesitation was fatal. Kopecky and Persico led the charge, but they arrived one second too late. Van Vleuten raised her arms in disbelief, sealing her second world road title and perhaps her most extraordinary. 

Pain, patience and instinct carried her to one of cycling’s great against-the-odds victories.

For half a century Belgium had waited. On Glasgow’s short, sharp circuit, Lotte Kopecky delivered. The rain-slicked laps had stripped the race to its core by the final kilometres. Kopecky waited, measured, then attacked with 6 km left on the final drag through the city. 

Demi Vollering chased but could not close the gap. Kopecky entered George Square alone, arms aloft, the first Belgian woman to wear the rainbow since 1973. 

It was her third rainbow jersey of that championship week (after two on the track), yet the most significant. In tears of joy, the 27-year-old celebrated a career-defining victory on a day that confirmed her as one of the peloton’s most formidable all-rounders.

Zurich brought cold rain and Dutch dysfunction, and Kopecky thrived again. The 154km course reduced the field to a handful of riders by the finale. The Dutch squad had arrived as favourites but once more suffered from internal discord and tactical missteps, leaving their leader Demi Vollering isolated at critical moments. Forced to take matters into her own hands, she entered the finale without support, marking attacks but unable to dictate the outcome.

In the final sprint of a six-rider group, Kopecky chose her moment perfectly. She surged past her rivals to win by half a wheel, with American Chloé Dygert taking second and Italy’s Elisa Longo Borghini third. Vollering rolled in fifth, left to ponder what might have been.

Kopecky became the first woman in more than a decade to successfully defend the road title, winning again in Zürich after a race shaped by rain and a demanding final.

Few had Magdeleine Vallières down as a contender in Kigali. The 24-year-old Canadian arrived with just one professional victory to her name, but on the first African World Championships she seized an opportunity the favourites allowed to slip away.

A group of ten escaped with a lap and a half remaining as Vollering, Reusser, Longo Borghini and Ferrand-Prévot watched each other behind. With the major nations represented, the chase never properly came together.

Vallières made the difference herself. She followed Niamh Fisher-Black and Mavi García clear on the Côte de Kigali Golf before attacking at the foot of the cobbled Côte de Kimihurura with 2.4 kilometres remaining.

“I knew I probably wouldn't win in a sprint against Niamh because she is strong,” Vallières said. “I told myself that I didn't want any regrets, and I don't.”

Neither Fisher-Black nor García could respond. Vallières rode alone to the finish, 23 seconds clear, becoming the first Canadian to win an elite world road title.

A year later, she will defend the rainbow jersey on home roads in Montréal.