Sweden’s Susanne Ljungskog scored her second consecutive world championship on Saturday, winning a physical, bar-to-bar sprint over a group of five other survivors at the end of the 124km elite women’s road race in the streets of Hamilton, Ontario. For the thousands gathered in front of Hamilton City Hall to witness the finish on Main Street, it was an electric ending to the day, but the final sprint was just one part of the most scintillating race seen so far at the 2003 road world’s.

The real drama of the day was provided by a very familiar face, one that has been thrilling racing fans since before some of her competitors were born. A well-timed attack by 44-year-old Jeannie Longo nearly stole the show. After making a solo breakaway with 20km to go, the French legend kept spectators on the edge of their seats until the final seconds of the race, when she was caught just 300 meters from the finish.

“Jeannie’s really experienced and she reads the race really well,” said Dede Demet-Barry, the U.S. team leader who rode an aggressive race and ended up finishing 11th. “There had been attack after attack after attack, and suddenly there was a lull, and [Longo] got a big gap. She made a smart move.”

Photo: Casey B. Gibson

The timing of Longo’s attack was smart, but the real surprise was her tenacity over the final 20km. She fought a small group of chasers until the very end, when she was eventually caught by Ljungskog and the day’s eventual silver and bronze medalists: Mirjam Melchers of the Netherlands and Nicole Cooke of Great Britain.

Before Longo made her move, the race had played out as expected. Somarriba’s Spanish team had done the majority of the pace-setting on the climbs throughout the first half of the race. That pressure, along with aggressive racing by riders such as Demet-Barry and Russians Olga Zabelinskaia and Zoulfia Zabirova, carved the lead group down to 29 by the 100km mark.

With two of the 10 laps remaining, the first selection had been made. Included in the group of 29 were Lyne Bessette and Sue Palmer-Komar, Canada’s two remaining threats after the morning’s shocking news that Geneviève Jeanson had been declared “unfit to race” by the UCI due to a high hematocrit level.

Also in the mix were time trial world champion Joanne Somarriba, Lithuanian climbing ace Edita Pucinskaite (1999 world champion), German Judith Arndt (second in Wednesday’s time trial), as well as Demet-Barry, Ljungskog, Melchers and Cooke among others.

As the group hit the Beckett Drive climb on that second-to-last lap, several attacks left the group unsettled until a split occurred with only 13 making the front group. A few minutes later, as they were rolling along Fennell Avenue atop the escarpment, Longo attacked.

“It’s impossible to watch everybody in the race,” Ljungskog said. “For me there were five riders to watch, and [Longo] was not one of them.”

With a vicious acceleration on one of the course’s few relatively flat sections, Longo quickly built a 200-meter gap. By the time she had descended back down the escarpment, and climbed back up the longer Claremont Access road, she had a gap of 25 seconds.

With a lack of cohesion in the chase, Longo’s gap yo-yo’d from 30 seconds to 15 and back up to 30 over the course of the final lap. “After Jeannie Longo was gone, I was always working and trying to get the others to follow through,” said Cooke, who passed through the start-finish area on Main Street for the bell lap while gesturing at the others to pull through.

Several teams, including Russia, France and Canada, had more than one rider, so they were expected to take the initiative. “Nicole Cooke did a lot to try and bring [Longo] back,” Demet-Barry said. She was just trying to get the group to cooperate. I was rolling through, but there were a lot of people who weren’t.”

Demet-Barry, who had no teammates left at that time and spent the last few laps chasing down attacks on her own, was starting to experience leg cramps.

“I was able to cover a lot of moves today and be in a lot of moves,” she said. “I did what I could. I didn’t have another teammate the last few laps who could cover things so I had to ride in the front and just be selective.”

Longo lit up the final 20km

Photo: Graham Watson

Longo hit the base of the final climb, a steady 2km grind up the wide-open Claremont Access, with a 28-second advantage. Nearing the top, it looked as if her legs had finally given in when the group, led by Cooke, closed to within 20 meters. But Longo dug deep one last time and came over the top with a slight advantage heading into the final 2km, a fast descent followed by a lefthand turn into the finishing stretch.

The descent did Longo in, and she was finally caught in the last corner, after which Lungskog unleashed her sprint to win by the width of a tire over Melchers. Cooke was third in the sprint, narrowly squeezing by Pucinskaite for bronze, with Zabelinskaia and Longo finishing fifth and sixth.

“I started this year with a goal to win the Tour de France, but I had problems there, a bad stomach,” Ljungskog said. “When I was seventh there, I decided to try to win the world championships again and it has been by goal since the Tour.”

Ljungskog’s gold gave Sweden its second medal of the world’s after Viktor Renang’s bronze in the junior men’s time trial. Full results are posted