Iván Romeo (Spain) pulled out a spectacular final 9.4 kilometres to win the men’s under-23 individual time trial world championship race on Monday.
Romeo was 20 seconds behind Switzerland’s Jan Christen at the first check atop a gradual climb but made up time on the undulating middle section to close to within two seconds. Then, Romeo blasted through the flat final section to win the rainbow jersey by 41 seconds.
Jakob Soderqvist (Sweden) also saved his bullets for the final stretch and cruised in for the silver medal at 32 seconds behind the Spaniard, coming in ahead of Christen by eight seconds.
The home country had to settle for bronze as Christen’s time held even in the face of a stiff challenge from last year’s runner-up Alec Segaert (Belgium), who was quickest at the second check but then imploded in the final and finished fourth.
Romeo called the victory, “the happiest day of my life”.
“I’ve worked so hard for this,” Romeo said. “Few people know how bad I wanted this, only my close ones and my friends, my family. I’ve been here for 10 days with my father here in Zurich, seeing the parcours.
“I like the distance, I like the climb. It was pretty good for me, but you never know. At the beginning of the day it was raining for me, some descents were wet, so even having the best time when I arrived, I thought they were gonna be faster.
“But I pushed so hard in the last 10k – my pacing was meant to be like that, but I did not expect to have that power at the end.”
Paul Lomulia (Uganda) set the quickest early time but was soon eclipsed by Mateusz Gajdulewicz (Poland), but Isaac del Toro (Mexico) was flying and came through more than a minute faster than the Pole.
Portugal’s Antonio Morgado was well behind his trade teammate at the second check and faded in the final section, dropping behind Matthias Schwarzbacher (Slovakia) to come third-fastest at the finish.
Behind, Adam Rafferty (Ireland) and Christen were quicker than Del Toro at the first check by 22 and 34 seconds, respectively. Soon after, Romeo slotted in second-fastest at the first check and then surpassed Christen at the second check by a single second.
Rafferty came through at the finish six seconds quicker than Del Toro and hot on his heels, Christen motored across the line a full 37 seconds faster. But the Swiss rider could only watch as Romeo came past 41 seconds ahead, having made up a huge margin in less than 10km.
Also making up time was Segaert, who came through the second check with the quickest time, five seconds ahead of Romeo. Soderqvist made up time in the final phase to move into second overall at 32 seconds.
It was only up to Segaert to see if he could get onto the podium but he faded into fourth.
Results
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