Australia's Michael Matthews has claimed the bronze medal in the men's elite road race at the world road cycling championships in Wollongong.

Matthews was involved in a bunch sprint behind gold medallist Belgian Remco Evenepoel, with French rider Christophe Laporte taking the silver.

It is Australia's first medal in the men's elite road race at the world championships since Matthews won bronze in 2017.

He also won silver at the 2015 world titles.

The national selectors controversially left out sprint ace Caleb Ewan and based the team around Matthews, who duly delivered for Australia.

A fortnight after becoming Belgium's first Grand Tour winner in 44 years, 22-year-old Evenepoel became his country's first men's elite road race world champion in a decade.

Evenepoel broke away with 25 kilometres left in Sunday's 266.9km race and completed an emphatic win, pumping his first in elation as he crossed the line on his own.

Matthews was in the main peloton that swallowed up a smaller chase group inside the last kilometre.

The sprint for the minor medals came two minutes and 21 seconds after Evenepoel's win.

The last Belgian men's world champion was Philippe Gilbert in 2012.

The race featured 12 laps of a leg-sapping 17km finishing circuit at Wollongong.

A fortnight ago, Evenepoel won the Vuelta a Espana Grand Tour and earlier this season took out the Liege-Bastogne-Liege one-day classic.

There was drama at the start of the race when Dutch ace Mathieu van der Poel started but withdrew soon after.

It had emerged that he was arrested on Saturday night and charged with assault.

Police took van der Poel into custody after an incident at the team hotel involving an argument with two teenage girls as he was trying to sleep on race eve.

Early breaks gained as much as eight minutes on the peloton, but they never looked threatening.

Inside the last 70km, a front group featured Australians Ben O'Connor and Luke Plapp, as well as Evenepoel.

As with the Australian women on Saturday, the men were attentive to any dangerous moves and kept Matthews well protected.

O'Connor and Plapp dropped back, their jobs done, leaving Giro d'Italia's Jai Hindley in the front group.

Inside the last 40km, the pace ratcheted up and the front group started fracturing.

Evenepoel and Kazakh rider Alexey Lutsenko broke clear and built a small advantage on the second-last lap.

The Belgian ace kicked clear of Lutsenko on the second-last ascent of the tough Mt Pleasant climb.

AAP