Julian Alaphilippe is world champion

The race started with 174 riders at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Imola on a 28.68km circuit that had to be completed 9 times (258.2km in total) and featured two challenging climbs with up to 13% gradients between Ponte and Mazzolano and up to 14% gradients from Isola to Cima Gallistena.

Shortly after the start, a group of 7 riders broke away from the peloton to launch a hopeless attack. Nevertheless, especially the German Jonas Koch and the Norwegian Torstein Traeen were persistent and determined until they were finally caught up by the peloton after 190 km. Now the race was relaunched.

Now the battle of the nations began. The French, Belgians and British took turns pulling away to thin out the peloton more and more, as a large part of the riders were no longer able to keep up the pace. With about 40 kilometers to go, this year's Tour de France winner Tadej Pogacar launched an attack on the Mazzolano climb and waited for others to follow him. Despite being 22 seconds ahead at one point, the Slovenian was caught by the peloton again with 20 kilometers to go. Now favorites like Tom Dumoulin or the "Shark of Messina" Vincenzo Nibali also launched an attack, but the escape attempt did not succeed. The peloton gradually diminished as the helpers of the favorites had exhausted themselves and ended the race early. Now the Cima Gallistena was waiting for the riders for the last time that day. With about 17 km to go, Michal Kwiatkowski launched an attack. He was followed by Alaphilippe, Roglic, van Aert, Van Avermaet and the Swiss Hirschi. Just before the summit in the final climb, Alaphilippe sprinted away from his opponents and managed to open up an 8-second lead, increasing it to 14 seconds. He kept looking behind to make sure his gap was big enough and to see how his opponents would behave. In the end, the chasers settled for a silver and bronze medal. The French captain and winner of the 2019 Tour de France, Julian Alaphilippe, was able to celebrate his incredible world title, following in the footsteps of a famous Bernhard Hinaud. Van Aert started the sprint, Hirschi managed to follow him and Kwiatkowski also tried, but the sprint ended in the finish as it had started, lifting Wout van Aert to 2nd place and Marc Hirschi to 3rd. With the same gap of 24 seconds, Michal Kwiatkowski had to settle for 4th place, just a touch behind Hirschi.