If you look at the winners alone, there probably isn’t much of a surprise in the outcomes of the elite men’s and women’s elite time trials at the UCI Road World Championships.
Dominant force Remco Evenepoel (Belgium) tightened his grip on the men’s title, winning it for a third consecutive time, whilst Marlen Reusser (Switzerland) won the women’s race, confirming her status as the peloton’s eminent time trialist.
Tadej Pogačar (Slovenia) started the men’s time trial expecting to challenge Evenepoel for the title, and the pair did face off, but in totally the wrong way – when Evenepoel caught and passed Pogačar on the final climb. Considering the Belgian started two and a half minutes after Pogačar, it was a clear sign that the Slovenian was really not having a good day.
Even a bad day for Pogačar still meant fourth overall, and only one second off the podium in the end, but for a rider who has multiple Grand Tours, Monuments, and a world title to his name, even the podium wouldn’t have been a huge result – fourth probably doesn’t mean much.
In the women’s race, Demi Vollering (Netherlands) finished third in the end, but had such a bad feeling that she crossed the line thinking she might be twentieth. Cédrine Kerbaol, who could reasonably have aimed for the podium finished 13th, 3:20 down, calling it “literally the hardest TT of my life”.
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at CyclingNews RSS Feed…