Tom Boonen ( <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /?>
Belgium) has won the world road race championship. Boonen took a bunch sprint to win the 13-lap, 273-km road race in 6:26:10. Alejandro Valverde (
Spain) took the silver, and Anthony Geslin (
France) won the bronze. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /?>

The peloton took a while to wake up. At two km, Krasimir Vasilev (
Bulgaria) attacked, and eventually Juan Carlos Lopez Martin (
Colombia), Dmitri Muravyev (
Kazakhstan), and Saul Raisin (
United States ) set out in pursuit. The rest of the field did not, however, and by the end of the third lap, Vasilev led the bunch by 11:43. During the fourth lap, the three chasers caught the Bulgarian.

Initially, only the undermanned British squad chased. This served the interests of the sprinters' teams such as the Italians, the Belgians, and the Australians without conferring any advantage on the Britons. Eventually, however, other teams joined the pursuit and reduced the escapees' advantage to 7:06 by the end of the seventh lap.

Attrition took its toll. During the seventh lap, Lopez Martin was dropped, and Vasilev fell off of the pace a lap later. By the end of the eighth circuit, the fugitives led by 4:52.

The Spaniards began to chase, and their pressure split the bunch. The Italians, however, brought the peloton back together. Joost Posthuma (
Netherlands) attacked and took Francisco Mancebo (
Spain), Filippo Pozzato (
Italy), Vladimir Efimkin (
Russia), and Murillo Fischer (
Brazil) with him. The Germans and the Spaniards chased down the attackers. 

A series of attacks took place. During the ninth lap, Denis Shkarpeta (
Uzbekistan) bridged up to the leaders. Raisin was dropped, and Shkarpeta and Muravyev forged ahead. At the end of Lap 10, the pair led the field by 0:07.

The Australians led the chase. Shkarpeta dropped Muravyev, but the peloton caught him soon after. Chris Kern (
France) attacked, but was caught after forging a 15-second lead. Oscar Pereiro (
Spain) and Jakob Piil (
Denmark) countered and built an 18-second advantage.

Pieter Weening (
Netherlands) set out in pursuit, and Paolo Bettini (
Italy), Patrick Calcagni (
Switzerland), Philippe Gilbert (
France), Sergei Lagutin (
Uzbekistan), Allan Davis (
Australia), Miguel Martin Perdiguero (
Spain), Fabian Wegmann (
Germany), Valverde, and Stijn Devolder (
Belgium) followed. The chasers bridged up to the leaders and led the peloton by  1:14 after 11 laps.

The French, who had missed the break, led the chase. The Spaniards drove the break, but the peloton made up ground. Bettini attacked, and Wegmann, Piil, Devolder, Gilbert, Valverde, and Perdiguero followed.    

The Australia-led bunch continued to close on the break, and only about 0:20 separated the bunch from the break as the last lap began. Perdiguero and Bettini attacked but were brought back. Piil and Gilbert countered, and Wegmann joined them. The Australians, however, rode them down.

Karsten Kroon (Netherlands) attacked, and Bettini, Julian Dean (New Zealand), Bjorn Leukemans (Belgium), Koos Moerenhout (Netherlands), and Alexander Vinokourov (Kazakhstan), among others,