In unusually thrilling races for a time trial, both winners were locked in tight races with their nearest rivals – Evenepoel with Italy’s Filippo Ganna and Brown with arguably the best female rider on the road, Demi Vollering of the Netherlands.
The 46.1course in and around Zürich seemed tailor-made for Evenepoel, as it was mostly flat but had a series of short climbs at the midway point, the most testing of which was 2.4km long at an average gradient of 4.9%, with a short 0.6km ramp at 8.5%.
But the ride began inauspiciously for the defending ITT world champion. As he waited on the start ramp, nervously working the pedals, the chain came off about one minute before he was due to start. A technician worked feverishly to get the chain back on the derailleur as the seconds ticked away, succeeding just in time. Then, as Evenepoel said after the race, his power meter malfunctioned.
The Belgian led Ganna at every checkpoint, slowly building a lead that stretched to 19 seconds at the third, and final, split. But the final 12km of the race suited the fast Italian and he pounded the pedals, reaching a speed of 84km/h, to try to make up the gap. He failed by just 7 seconds. The newly crowned European champion, Edoardo Affini of Italy, finished third, 54 seconds behind the winner.
“It was a pretty tough day for me,” Evenepoel said afterwards. “My chain dropped one minute before the start. I took the start and I had no power meter at all, so it was a pure TT on feeling. I was struggling the last 2 to 3km. I’d pushed quite hard on the second kicker then went all-out in the downhill as well. And without having the power meter it was pretty difficult to keep the pace, but in a TT – especially a championship – it doesn’t matter what the gap is.”
He went on to say: “I had to push, but I could never go over the limit because I didn’t know exactly what [power] I was doing. It must have been the most difficult TT of my life. But if you want to win, you need to feel your body as well.”
Evenepoel is now in a position to accomplish a feat that has never been done before, win the ITT and road race competitions in both the Olympics and the Worlds in the same year. But for that he will have to beat a certain Tadej Pogačar, who is in the form of his charmed life.
The 28-year-old Affini has developed into a superb time trial rider. However, he finished on the podium due to a stroke of bad luck suffered by the Australian Jay Vine. The two were tied at the final checkpoint, but Vine crashed in the last 12km and crossed the finish line bleeding from the face and left shoulder. He finished fifth, at 1:24
Brown’s 17-second victory over Vollering was just as suspenseful. Riding on the same course as the men, though 17km shorter, she led Vollering by a mere 6 seconds at the first checkpoint but was down by 8 seconds at the final checkpoint, which came after the climbs and with 10km left to ride on the 29.9km course.
But this was a race the 32-year-old Olympic champion wanted more than any other as she would be retiring after this year. She clawed back the time lost on the climb and much more on that final flat stretch, to make her forget her second-place finishes in the preceding two ITT world championships – by 13 seconds to Ellen van Dijk in 2022 and to Chloe Dygert by 6 seconds last year. Dygert finished third in this year’s race, 56 seconds behind Brown.
“It honestly feels like I’m in a bit of a dream these last couple of months [with] these big goals that seem ambitious,” Brown said after the race. “But I’ve just been able to get out on the road and do it and realize those dreams.”
She said that her Olympics win helped give her the wings to win the race. “Having that success on my shoulders already gave me a lot of confidence,” she said. “And as I was riding the in the last couple of [kilometers] I just kept telling myself I can be world champion, and that gave me the strength to push all the way until the end.”
