I am so, so, so, so happy that Marianne Vos (the Netherlands) won the women's road race at the World Championships today.

Vos attacked the last time up the climb of Via Salviati. With 3.5 kilometres to go she was just five seconds ahead of Emma Johansson (Sweden) and Rosella Ratto (Italy), and she did not need more to claim her second successive world road race title, and her third in total.

15 seconds later, Emma Johansson out-sprinted Ratto for second place.

"Of course it's great to defend the title. They say always it's hard to win one, but to do it two in a row it's even more difficult," Vos said. "It was especially with such strong competition, the Italians were very strong today, they made it a tough race."

At the final lap, Marianne Vos had just Anna van der Breggen for company in a group that included the three Italians Rosella Ratto, Tatiana Guderzo and Elisa Longo Borghini, Emma Johansson (Sweden), Evelyn Stevens (USA), Tiffany Cromwell (Australia), Linda Villumsen (New Zealand), Claudia Hausler (Germany) and Tatiana Antoshina (Russia).

When Guderzo and Longo Borghini took turns to attack at the penultimate climb on the circuit, Fiesole, Vos rode in the middle of the group, and Anna van der Breggen was at the front, trying to make things easy for her teammate.

Midway up the climb, Johansson made a move at the Via Salviati.
Johansson's move shattered the leading group, and Vos opened a small gap.

Johansson tried to chase Vos, but Ratto was unwill to contribute to the chase. Perhaps she hoped that Vos would make a mistake, so that they could catch her.

But Vos does not make mistakes very often, and she could stretch out her advantage as she entered the final kilometre. And she won.

Vos has been a notch above the rest of the peloton for quite some time, but with three elite road race rainbow jerseys to go with her five silver medals, and a gold in the Olympics and many, many other fine results, it is just impossible to not see that she is amazing.