September 24/09 11:03 am - Road World Championships: Elite Men's ITT report, PHOTOS and full results

Posted by Editoress on 09/24/09
 

Canada's Svein Tuft finished 15th in the men's 49.8 kilometre time trial at the Road World Championships.  Tuft finished four minutes and 24.25 seconds behind new world champion Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland, who took his third title.  Gustav Larsson of Sweden finished second and Tony Martin of Germany third.  Tom Zirbel of the USA was a surprise fourth (he will join Tuft at Garmin-Slipstream for 2010), and set the early fast time after starting 23rd.

Coverage of the 2009 World Championships made possible with the support of Shimano

Photos

Tuft won the silver medal in Varese, Italy at last year's World Championships and finished seventh at the Olympics, but has struggled all this season after signing with a top-ranked European professional squad and then suffering a concussion from a crash at the Tour of California in February.

"To tell the truth," he admitted, "that was one of the best rides I have had all year, and the best I've felt on a bike in a while.  It's the best I'm capable of now, so I'm satisfied with this ride.  But I know that I'm capable of a lot more."

"This [season] was an accumulation of things, like getting used to racing at a whole new level, plus the injury earlier [in the year] and recovering from that.  And this was a tough course; you had to keep the pressure on all the way around it.  If you got blown on the steep section of the climb, it took 3 to 4 minutes to recover along the top when you should be hammering it."

Cancellara was one rider who had no problems - on the climb or any other section.  Fastest at every split, he caught his Saxo Bank team mate Larsson - who finished second to Cancellara at the Olympics - on the second lap [of three], and then British rider Bradley Wiggins on the third (to be fair, Wiggins had drivetrain problems and had to change bikes at the top of the final climb; he was riding in fourth, four seconds out of third at the last split before his mechanical).  Defending champion Bert Grabsch (Germany) was never in contention, finishing tenth, 3:37.39 behind.

Race Notes

- Alexandre Vinokourov (Kazakhstan), just back from a two year ban for blood doping, finished eighth, and was roundly booed every time up the climb.  On the other hand, the two riders from St Kitts and Nevis - Reginald Douglas and James Weekes - finished 65th and 66th (out of 66 starters) and were cheered by spectators.  Weekes was being given instructions on what gears to use as he lined up on the starting ramp.  Both would have been lapped by Cancellara if they had started in the same wave of riders...

- Cancellara, who had been told of his huge lead, cruised across the finish line with his arms in the air, something probably not seen before in a time trial at the Worlds...