Emil Herzog takes junior rainbow stripes following "hardest sprint of my whole life"

Emil Herzog has shown throughout the entire season that he was one of the most dominant junior riders in the peloton, however his win at the World Championships was anything but easy.

“I worked hard for this. I think last year I had a bit of bad luck. Today everything went perfect. I still can’t believe it that everything worked out so well and that I’m now a world champion. That sounds so unreal," the German - who is connected with BORA - hansgrohe's junior team - said in a post-race interview. As is traditional in the junior races, it was an all-out race from the get-go, and Herzog followed his plan of always staying near the front.

That was crucial within the opening laps to assure he was in the winning group, and was then able to follow the attacks throughout the day - mostly from António Morgado - which slowly thinned down the group. The Portuguese ended up being his closest competitor, as Herzog had to put on a chase over the final climb and run-up to the finish, making the catch within the final kilometers.

An initial attack didn't succeed in creating differences, but in the final sprint Herzog nevertheless had the best legs out of the two. “I think that was the hardest sprint of my whole life," he detailed, however bringing in a very important title.