On the day the amazing Grace Brown said farewell to big-time racing, her teammate Ruby Roseman-Gannon demonstrated the future of Australian women's cycling remains in exciting hands even without its brightest star.

As Belgian superstar Lotte Kopecky retained her world championship road race crown in Zurich in a thrilling finish on Saturday, Roseman-Gannon finished sixth amid the highest-quality group-sprint bunch following the race of her life.

It concluded what had been an occasion of rare sadness for the peloton following the death of teenage Swiss rider Muriel Furrer on Friday following her crash in the equivalent junior race.

Brown, a double winner in her final worlds after winning both the individual and mixed team time trials, couldn't bow out on the ultimate high as she ended up a weary 30th, more than 10 minutes behind, at the end of an otherwise stellar farewell week for her.

But the Australian team effort worked well, giving the 25-year-old double national champion Roseman-Gannon the chance to battle it out with the best of the best in a magnificent finale to a tough, rain-drenched 154.1km race.

Belgian Kopecky took the sprint ahead of American Chloe Dygert and Italian Elisa Longo-Borghini, with the usually fast-finishing Roseman-Gannon eventually running out of steam.

She had got herself in the breakaway and featured in the final elite sprint group of half-a-dozen, even though she got broken by four luminaries - Kopecky, Longo-Borghini, Demi Vollering and Liane Lippert - with six kilometres to go.

Yet joining forces with time trial star Dygert, the pair managed to claw back to the leading quartet, who slowed and started playing mind games with the sprint approaching.

But after all her exhausting efforts to battle back, Melbourne's Roseman-Gannon had nothing left to give for the sprint itself, though Dygert was strong enough to plough on for the silver.

On a day when over half the field dropped out because of the tough conditions, there was another exceptional Australian performance from Neve Bradbury, who was second in the under-23 category while finishing 15th in a group that finished three minutes behind Kopecky.

Sarah Gigante was 20th, while Brodie Chapman finished 38th among the 81 finishers.

Afterwards, Kopecky led the tributes and dedicated her race win to Furrer, who had died at the age of 18 from head injuries sustained in Thursday's crash.

"There's a kind of disbelief, but first of all I want to pay my condolences to the family of Muriel," said the 28-year-old champion.

"I think the minute of silence at the start, seeing the Swiss riders crying, is something you just don't want to see. This is also for Muriel."

There was a sombre tone to the day with a pared-down victory ceremony, with no winner's national anthem played and flags flown at half-mast.

David Lappartient, president of the ruling body UCI, had earlier defended the decision to continue the event despite Furrer's death, which had also been endorsed by her family.

"We don't think it would be the best way to remember Muriel if we stopped the world championship. We had a meeting and together we decided it wouldn't be the best way to go if we stopped the races," he said.

The circumstances of the crash remain unclear, and Lappartient did not want to comment while a police investigation continues.