Australia's Michael Matthews took to the start line Sunday morning as one of the favorites to win the rainbow jersey in the elite men's road race at the World Championships in Leeds, Yorkshire.

"It was terrible," Matthews told reporters after the 261-km race. There aren't many other words to describe the day. I tried to accelerate at the end, but I couldn't do anything."

The 29-year-old's seven teammates worked tirelessly for much of the day to keep Matthews at the front of the race and out of trouble. In particular, Rohan Dennis, winner of last Wednesday's world championship individual time trial, shared pace-making duties with members of the Dutch and French teams.

Dennis' day came to an end when the race reached the first of the 14-km finish circuits in Harrogate, and the entire team ultimately had to drop out of the race after guiding Matthews to the main group of potential winners.

"We knew it was going to be a difficult race. I always knew it was going to be a gamble kind of race."

"With four laps to go, that group of five went away. I waited for the last couple of laps and then tried to move, but they didn't come back." Denmark's Mads Pedersen out-sprinted Italy's Matteo Trentin and Switzerland's Stefan Kuhn to take the title.

"The race got too exciting and the riders were gone," Matthews said of his teammates.

"Condition-wise, yes. But the course itself wasn't that hard."

"I think it was a sprint for fourth or fifth," Matthews said, as the 25-man chase group was reeled in after three-time world champion Peter Sagan (Slovakia) and Denmark's Michal Valgren slipped off the front of the pack with a few kilometers remaining, and Norway's Alexander Kristoff finished in seventh place.

"But hey, the race was already over."