Mathieu van der Pol (Netherlands) crashed on the final lap of the Yorkshire circuit of the UCI Road World Championships.

Van der Pol had made a key move in the race with Matteo Trentin, who attacked with 33km to go; the two joined the then leading group that included Stefan Küng, Gianni Moscon, and eventual winner Mads Pedersen, and for the next For the next lap and a half, Van der Pol looked like the overwhelming favorite to win.

However, with 13km to go on the final lap, Van der Pol unexpectedly fell off the bike.

The 24-year-old quickly caught up to the rest of the field and finished 43rd in what was the toughest race in the world championships since Orso in 1993, Duitama in 1995, and Valkenburg in 1998.

"I don't know what happened," Van der Pol said after the race, outside the Dutch team bus. [All of a sudden, I lost power in my legs. I don't think I made a mistake today. I was in the right group and all of a sudden my tank was empty. It was the first time something like this had happened, but it was also the first time I had raced this distance in the rain. It rained all day, it was very cold, and it was a very hard race."

Van der Pol entered the world championships as one of the favorites after a dominant victory in the Tour of Britain earlier this month.

The Amstel Gold winner has shined throughout the season and was named the leader of the Dutch team in the weeks leading up to the World Championships. The men in orange raced tactically sharp, covering several key moves until Van der Pol's instinctive attack with around 30 km to go.

"This has been a world championship that will be remembered for a long time. It will be a long memory for all the athletes who competed in this event. I was in a good group, everything was going well, and then all of a sudden I couldn't do anything.

"I wanted to do more today. It's not that we were close to the title. We missed our chance, but it was like we were getting closer to the title."

"My attack was instinctive and it was the perfect moment for the group to get in front. At that moment many of the favorites were already struggling. It was the right moment and the right move.

Van der Pol had coached Trentin in the recent Tour of Britain and had outperformed Pedersen in the 2013 Junior World Championships. He never underestimated his opponent, but could not keep pace as the race entered its final stages.

He admitted that he began to think about taking the rainbow jersey once he came into contact with the winning breakaway group, but his hopes of victory were quickly dashed when his legs reached their limits.

"I knew Trentin was strong and I knew Mads Pedersen. I knew him from his junior days and he is really strong in these conditions. Of course I was thinking about it, but all of a sudden the tank was empty and I knew that today was going to be my day. I was feeling good, really good, and then all of a sudden it was all gone. When I got separated from the pack I was really dizzy and empty, but in the last few kilometers I felt good again. It was really strange."