Victory for a top specialist like Remco Evenepoel in the Volta ao Algarve time trial on Saturday may have been widely predicted, but it could not overshadow an almost equally spectacular TT performance for runner-up Magnus Sheffield.
While the American fell just 16 seconds short of delivering what would have been a colossal upset and beating the Belgian, Sheffield nonetheless finished ahead of much more established stars of the calibre of 2022 Algarve time trial winner Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ), Ineos teammate Filippo Ganna, Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Stefan Bissegger (EF Education-EasyPost)
If Sheffield could not add a second TT victory to his palmares after one he took in the Tour of Denmark a couple of years back, second at the Algarve nonetheless both augurs well for his season and, at 21, even beyond that.
“I’m definitely disappointed but it’s a good kind of disappointment, just need to put in the work and keep going for next time,” Sheffield told a small group of reporters afterwards.
“It’s a big year with the Olympics coming up, so every one of these time trials counts.”
Speaking later to Cyclingnews, Sheffield said that his strategy on the rolling 22-kilometre course had been to make a fast start on an early uphill and then try and hold on as long as possible.
“I came out of the start quite quickly, there was quite a hard uphill drag right out of the gate, and it was really just about staying as low and aero as possible in these fast sections,” he said.
“There were quite a few technical corners and roundabouts, some quite dirty corners, and I just tried to take care in those and maximize every bit of the course I could.”
“I wanted to find seconds on every corner, and hopefully I could come out quickest.”
Rather than use reference points from other teammates, Sheffield said that throughout the course he had been “going off my own feelings. I did a few laps this morning, and I also reconned the course the Tuesday before the race.”
“I don’t really like knowing how I compare to others because it’s not that useful ultimately, I just want to know what’s coming ahead of me and what I need to focus on.”
Sitting in the hot seat with the race speaker repeatedly announcing he had the fastest time was surely a pleasurable feeling, but when a Soudal-QuickStep soigneur arrived and began setting things up for Evenepoel to warm down in another corner of the tents next to the winner’s podium, even before the Belgian had completed the course, there was…
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