Ellen van Dijk disappointed the Aussie crowds by beating their very own Grace Brown for the time trial rainbow jersey on Sunday’s opening day of the Wollongong 2022 Road World Championships in New South Wales, Australia. For the first time the U23 women had their own category, and Italian rider Vitorria Guazzini claimed the gold. Leah Kirchmann was top Canadian in her final Worlds.
You can watch the Wollongong Worlds on FloBikes.
The Course
The 34.2-km route was two laps of a circuit with time checks atop little hills on each lap.
The Canadian contingent was Alison Jackson and Leah Kirchmann.
On the other side of the 🌎 our athletes are ready to take on the Road World Championships, starting with the Individual Time Trial today in #Wollongong2022 💪
Don’t miss the duo of @L_Kirch & @aliACTIONjackso as they tackle the course at 7:30pm (EST) 👉 https://t.co/FoymutEYxA pic.twitter.com/OFNMgwObPZ
— Cycling Canada (@CyclingCanada) September 17, 2022
German Ricarda Bauernfeind, one of 11 U23 riders, was the first of 43 athletes to roll in three waves.
Jackson was the fifth rider to head down the ramp. She posted the best time at the first split at the 7 km mark with 10:38 until Aussie Grace Brown eclipsed her.
Bauernfeind was first to finish, her time 47:38. Another U23, the Netherlands’ Shirin van Anrooij, cracked that time by 29 seconds. Brown went 44:41 to usurpt the hot seat. Jackson finished with 49:30, the broadcasters not catching a second of her ride.
Kirchmann was in the second group. So was 2022’s dominant rider, Annemiek van Vleuten, twice the world chrono champion.
Van Vleuten, Lotte Kopecky, Kristen Faulkner and Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio couldn’t beat Brown’s best first intermediate time. Nor could they match her at the second time check. However, Faulkner caught and passed Kirchmann to post the second fastest time. Van Vleuten was third fastest after the end of the second grouping.
Could reigning champ Ellen Van Dijk or Swiss star Marlen Reusser beat Brown? Both of them clipped the Aussie’s first time check mark.
Guazzini smashed van Anrooij’s best U23 time with 45:20.
Although Reusser was beginning to falter, van Dijk was still killing it on the course. Reusser would secure her third consecutive time trial medal.
Wollongong 2022 Elite Women’s Time Trial
Gold) Ellen van Dijk (The Netherlands)…
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