photo credits @ UCI
Remco Evenepoel stormed to victory in today’s World Championship Men’s Individual Time Trial, earning Belgium its first-ever gold medal in the event, after beating Italy’s Filippo Ganna and Josh Tarling, a young British neo-pro who delivered an exceptional ride to score the bronze
The final climb to the finish at Stirling Castle proved decisive, with Evenepoel holding onto a 10-second advantage, later stopping the clock at 55:19 to become the youngest world time trial champion for elite men, with Ganna coming in 12-seconds down, followed by Tarling a further 36-seconds slower.
Meanwhile, America’s Brandon McNulty posted an impressive ride to hit the top-5, stopping the clock 1:27 slower, while Belgium’s Wout van Aert could only muster fifth.
Earlier, Ireland’s Ryan Mullen set the early pace with the first sub-one hour time of the day. But, on a day featuring big hitters like Ganna, Evenepoel and Van Aert still to come, his time of 58.21 never looked set to last the day.
Many British eyes were on Tarling, the outgoing junior time trial world champion from last year and contesting his first race at the elite level. Tarling didn’t disappoint, clocking the fastest time at every checkpoint before setting a new best time by a full 1.04 with time of a 56.07.
Following Tarling, Australia’s Rohan Dennis, in what was his final World Championship time trial before retirement, was set to take his place in the hot seat only to have the opportunity taken from him by a cruel and ill-timed mechanical at the bottom of the final climb. In the final reckoning, he finished seventh – the incident having cost him sixth place.
Belgium’s Van Aert later raised eyebrows when he went through the first checkpoint in sixth place, 27 seconds down, and when he went through check two more than a minute down it was clear it wasn’t his day. He would eventually finish fifth, 1.37 down.
However, Ganna and Evenepoel would later turn in the two best times, six and four seconds ahead of Tarling respectively. Interestingly, at the second checkpoint, Ganna and Evenepoel had swapped places, with the Belgian going through 12sec up and the hilliest part of the course.
From that point on, the two rivals only seemed to get faster, drawing away from Tarling as they battled against each other. But, Ganna was unable to make any real headway against Evenepoel, finishing 12 seconds behind the jubilant victor as he went through the finish.
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