Harris home in 26th

World Tour professional Ella Harris dug deep in a hard-working display over a frantic final 30kms to finish 26th in the elite women’s road race at the Road Cycling World Championships in Belgium.

Harris, 23, led home the New Zealand riders in the 158km road race from Antwerp with circuits around Flanders, featuring a plethora of punchy climbs and cobbled surfaces, before the finishing loop in Leuven.

Teammates Michaela Drummond and Henrietta Christie, who both ride for the BePink professional team based in Italy, were in the front group over the early stages looking for opportunities to get into a break but the high pace negated any attacks.

That left the World Tour pair of Harris and Niamh Fisher-Black to position themselves at the pointy end of the peloton over the final two and a half laps of a testing circuit in Leuven.

Harris was able to maintain position in the front group as attack after attack launched over the final laps. She was caught on the wrong side of a split in the lead group on the penultimate climb to comehome in the second pack 49 seconds behind the winner.

Young Italian rider Elisa Balsamo, a former junior world champion on the track and road, upset Dutch star Marianne Vos for the honours. She recently competed on the track at the Tokyo Olympics.

Drummond, in her first elite road world championship, came home in the third chase group 9:13 down on the winner in 64th place, with Fisher-Black a further 20 second back in 91st place.

The championships concludewith the elite men’s race, with the all-World Tour New Zealand team comprising Shane Archbold (Deceuninck-QuickStep), Tom Scully (EF Education-Nippo), Jack Bauer (Team Bike Exchange) and Connor Brown (Qhubeka-NextHash).