Cole Kessler was the top US finisher in the men’s under-23 time trial at the UCI Road World Championships on Monday in 11th place. After finishing the 31.2km course that he thought played to some of his strengths, he revised that assessment at the finish line at the Kigali Convention Centre, admitting he suffered with the climbing.
There was no medal for under-23 national time trial champion, but he found a silver lining with his Lidl-Trek Future Racing pro teammate, Jakob Söderqvist (Sweden), crushing the course and taking the hardware as the world’s best.
Both riders started their road careers in 2020 without a lot of fanfare with years of racing as juniors. Söderqvist earned his first medal, bronze, in the Swedish men’s junior time trial race that year, while Kessler won his first medal, gold, in his junior TT in 2021.
“I find myself right in the middle of being a climber and being like a pure power time trialist. So I thought that it [U23 ITT] wasn’t gonna be too bad for me. It was really hard. I was pretty much suffering the whole day,” Kessler told the media, including Cyclingnews, at the finish before Söderqvist stopped the clock as the best of the day.
Kessler said it was beneficial to get feedback on the U23 time trial course from US elite riders Chloé Dygert and Ruth Edwards from their ride on Sunday, as they competed on the same 31.2km route with the out-and-back double ascent of Côte de Nyanza (4.1km at 3.1%).
The 22-year-old Californian has raced in Rwanda before, competing twice…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at CyclingNews RSS Feed…