Remco Evenepoel and Grace Brown win cycling world time trial titles

The double Olympic gold medallist Remco Evenepoel successfully defended the world time trial title he won in last year’s World Road Championships in Glasgow, with victory in this year’s event in Zurich.

The Belgian, who won gold in the men’s road race and time trial at Paris 2024, joined Grace Brown, winner of the women’s Olympic time trial, as the first to hold both Olympic and world time trial titles in the same year, after the Australian had won the women’s “race of truth” earlier on Sunday.

However, Evenepoel suffered one of his habitual time trial scares, even before starting his effort, when the chain on his bespoke Olympic gold time trial bike slipped off, just seconds before the start.

“It was a pretty tough day for me,” the 24-year-old, who was third in this year’s Tour de France, said. “My chain dropped with one minute to go before the start. Then I had no power meter from the start, so it was a pure time trial, on feeling.”

He also faced a strong challenge from the former world champion Filippo Ganna of Italy, a silver medallist in Paris, who again took on Evenepoel, with the time gap between them narrowing in the closing kilometres, the difference 6.43 seconds at the finish.

“I was struggling in the last two or three kilometres,” Evenepoel said. “I pushed quite hard and, without the power meter, it was pretty difficult to keep the pace in the last five kilometres. But if you want to win, you need to feel your body as well.”

The British contender Josh Tarling, a bronze medallist last year in Glasgow, and whose medal hopes in Paris were thwarted by a puncture, arrived in Zurich with a point to prove. But his season has not been an easy one and he again had to settle for fourth place.

After starting the year with a stage win in February’s O Gran Camiño race in Spain, Tarling was disqualified for holding on to a team car in Paris-Roubaix, recovered to win the British national time trial title, but then lost out in the Olympic Games. He was then also forced to quit his debut Grand Tour, the Vuelta a España, after crashing on stage nine.

“To be honest, I messed up the whole end of my season really bad,” Tarling said. “I really cracked after the Olympics and then messed up in the Vuelta and crashed. I was just recovering and sulking.”

Meanwhile, there was disappointment for Demi Vollering in the elite women’s time trial, when the Dutch rider suffered another narrow defeat, only a few weeks after losing the Tour de France Femmes by just four seconds, when the Olympic time trial champion Brown took victory in the 29.9km race against the clock.

The 32-year-old, who was just 16 seconds quicker than Vollering on the rolling course from Gossau to Zurich, became the first rider to win both the Olympic and world time trial titles in the same season, shortly before Evenepoel followed suit.

“I didn’t realise that hadn’t been done before. It was something I aimed for, but not something I expected,” Brown said. “It was an ambition at the start of this year, with the Olympics and the world championships as big goals, but I’m really proud to have achieved it.”

Great Britain’s Anne Henderson, silver medallist in the Paris Olympics time trial, finished in seventh place and admitted to disappointment with her performance. “I was just terrible today,” she said. “I left my legs in the hotel. It kinda sucks. I just didn’t have it today.

“I felt really good in training all week and I was really hopeful. I knew as soon as I hit that first climb, I was way under target power, and I thought: ‘It’s going to be a long day.’”

Henderson acknowledged that the world championships time trial course, which included steady climbs, fast descents and flat sections, was more complicated than the city centre circuit in Paris.

“It was super tricky to put together a pacing plan today,” Henderson said. “In Paris, it was just one power the whole way, because it was super flat.”