VARESE, Italy — Alessandro Ballan won the world road race championship today with a late breakaway.

The Italian held off a group led by compatriot Damiano Cunego. Denmark's Matti Breschel took bronze.

Italian veteran Paolo Bettini, who was seeking his third straight world title before retiring, finished well back in the pack and was already celebrating another Italian victory when crossing the line.

"I still can't believe it. This is something special," said Ballan, whose only other major victory was at last year's Tour of Flanders.

The Italian team had controlled much of the race to set up Bettini, but the captain tired and instead it was the 28-year-old Ballan who came through.

In frenetic racing over the last seven miles, Ballan pulled away with a little over a mile to go. When he saw his lead would hold, he sat up on his bike and punched the air, held up one finger and soaked up the wild celebrations of the huge crowd while the pack finished 3 seconds back. He finished in 6 hours, 37 minutes, 30 seconds.

"In the last couple of kilometers the people screaming pushed me on," he said. "The public was fantastic. I've never cycled in conditions like this. I was tired and didn't think I was going to make it because I had cramps" over the last 30 minutes.

With Davide Rebellin taking fourth place it was a big day for the Italians, while the co-favorite Spanish team never had a shot at victory.

The 161.5-mile ride through and around the northern Italian resort town of Varese was run in perfect sunny conditions with temperatures hovering around 70 degrees.

The Italian team had promised to make it a punishing race to tire the sprinters ahead of the finishing line, yet the 205 riders set out at a leisurely pace, allowing rank outsiders Christian Poos of Luxembourg, Oleg Chuzhda of Ukraine and Venezuela's Richard Ochoa to build a 15-minute lead.

But the Italians went to the head of the pack halfway into the race to start narrowing the gap, and Chuzhda was finally caught with 35 miles to go.

By the time the bell rang for the last lap, six riders, including Ballan and Spain's Joaquin Rodriguez, had built a 15-second lead. Four more riders soon joined the group as it extended the lead to 30 seconds.

In the pack behind, Bettini was talking to Germany's Erik Zabel, knowing their cause was lost, but the Italian still cheered wildly to celebrate his teammate's victory.