Remco Evenepoel comes back from early crash to win junior World Championship road race

The young sensation Remco Evenepoel put in a stunning performance in the junior World Championship road race to claim the double.

Evenepoel crashed early on in the stage but battled back from a huge deficit, before riding the final 20km solo.

The road race is the 18-year-old's second Worlds victory, after he stomped the competition in the junior time trial earlier in the week.

How it happened

The junior men battled it out on a 132.4km, finishing with two 23.8km laps of Innsbruck.

A challenging course, the juniors had to take on the maximum 14% gradient of Gnadenwald before taking on the  7km Igls climb twice.

Racing was frantic in the opening stages, with crashes and mechanicals causing chaos in the bunch.

>>>UCI Road World Championships 2018: dates, route, where to watch and more

Germany and the USA pushed hard on the front as the kilometres rapidly ticked away.

A big crash in the middle of the pack brought down a big number of riders with 72km remaining.

Race favourite Remco Evenepoel came down along and a number of British riders were caught up in the chaos.

The young star  Evenepoel lost a big chunk of time while waiting for a bike change and was forced to chase back on alone.

Climbs over the course tore the field to pieces, with riders scattered across the road with 65km left to ride.

The Belgian Evenepoel caught a big group of chasing riders but didn’t take a breath, leading the group until he caught the bunch in front on a descent.

With 54km left, Evenepoel immediately jumped to the front of the main group to try and chase down the Italian Andrea Piccolo and German Marius Mayrhofer who had gone clear during the chase.

The chasers were caught before the first time the riders crested Igls, as Evenepoel kicked up the pace.

Heading into the final ascent of Igls, only the German Mayrhofer was able to stay with Evenepoel, who relentlessly rode on the front in an attempt to drop his rival.

With 19km left, the 18-year-old Belgian laid the final blow and escaped alone.

He rode across the line more than a minute ahead of second place

After battling all day and holding on to to Evenepoel's wheel, Mayrhofer faded in the final five kilometres but held off the two riders chasing behind.

The best placed British riders were Ben Tulett in 17th and Mason Hollyman in 20th, both 7-20 behind the winner.

Results

World Championships junior men's road race

1. Remco Evenepoel (BEL), in 3-03-49

2. Marius Mayrhofer (GER), at 1-25

3. Alessandro Fancellu (ITA), at 1-38

4. Alexandre Balmer (SUI)

5. Frederik Wandahl (DEN), at 3-20

6. Gabriele Benedetti (ITA)

7. Alois Charrin (FRA)

8. Kevin Vermaerke (USA)

9. Antonio Tiberi (ITA)

10. Sean Quinn (USA), at 3-25