Cycling: Cooke's lunge for the line earns her a bronze

A desperate last scramble for the line in the World Championships yesterday gained Britain's Nicole Cooke a bronze medal by a bare tyre's- width. A frantic pursuit of French veteran Jeannie Longo only ended when five riders, including Cooke, reached the Frenchwoman with 500 metres to go. Cooke, 20, paid for her earlier efforts when she was outmatched by Sweden's Susanne Ljungskog, winner of the event last year, with Holland's Miriam Melchers second.

Already the clear winner of the World Cup this season and a favourite for the World Championships, Cooke was a marked woman on the last two circuits of the 123km event. Thanks to prolonged pace-making by the Russian and Spanish teams, the two climbs on each of the 10 laps of the course snaking through the heart of Hamilton's parklands whittled down the field to a bare 30 for the final stages.After launching three assaults on the third-last climb of the day, Cooke missed out when Longo charged away alone, with a desperate pursuit headed by the woman from Cowbridge only concluding in the final kilometre.

Briefly blocked in as the six breakaways stormed towards the line, Cooke cranked up the power to add a bronze medal to the four World Championship gold medals she had racked up previously.

"It wasn't until I rode the circuit that I realised how tough it was going to be, the video I had just didn't do it justice," Cooke said afterwards. "I can't believe so many riders from other nations didn't help me chase Longo down, but then my heart wasn't in it for the sprint."

A shadow was cast over the day's with news that Canadian star Genevieve Jeanson had failed a red-blood-cell test. She was eliminated from the list of Cooke's potential rivals even before the event had started.