In a sprint to the finish line, Great Britain's Mark Cavendish became world champion after making his move down the right-hand side of the course, and just managed to hold off the rest of the field, to become his country's first road race world champion since Tom Simpson won the event in San Sebastián in 1965. The silver medal went to Australia's Matthew Goss – a team-mate of Cavendish on the team – with the bronze medal going to Germany's André Greipel.