It was the seventh women's scatch race appearance at the UCI Track Cycling World Championships.

The sprint of the peloton behind Van Dijk was won by Yumari González of Cuba who took the silver medal with Belinda Goss from Australia taking bronze.

[1][4] The start list further included Belinda Goss of Australia, Jarmila Machačová from the Czech Republic and Annalisa Cucinotta from Italy who won all three a silver medal during a World Cup race.

She was chased down by a small group that included Svetlana Paulikaite of Lithuania, Svitlana Halyuk of Ukraine and Ellen van Dijk of the Netherlands.

A crash in the middle period of the race took down Catherine Cheatley of New Zealand and Spain's Gema Pascual Torrecilla after a touch of wheels near the back.

[9] When a chase did materialise, it was too late and Van Dijk finished alone with a considerable gap to take the gold medal and the rainbow jersey.

Behind Van Dijk the sprint was won by the 2007 champion Yumari González Valdivieso of Cuba, ahead of Belinda Goss from Australia.

Annalisa Cucinotta of Italy was fourth and Rebecca Quinn from the United States of America finished fifth.

[3] The winner was awarded the rainbow jersey and the top three riders got flowers and respectively a gold, silver and bronze medal.

I was very disappointed because I also missed the Olympic Games, because I only started riding [world cups] on the track four months ago.

About the scratch race she continued: "My plan was to attack about 10 laps from the finish, I wanted to go when the speed was a bit lower.

Despite having quite a considerable gap coming into the final lap, Van Dijk refused to believe that the race was won until the very end.

A few days on from the frustration of non-qualification, her new rainbow jersey and gold medal provide her with a great deal of compensation.