July 28/21 3:50 am - Roglic Dominates Men's TT, Hugo Houle Finishes 13th
Posted by Editor on 07/28/21
After the disappointment of leaving the Tour de France following a crash, Primoz Roglic achieved some measure of solace by winning the gold medal in the men's time trial. The Slovenian dominated the race, finishing over a minute in front silver medalist Tom Dumoulin (Ned), with Rohan Dennis (Aus) taking third.
L to r: Tom Dumoulin, Primoz Roglic, Rohan Dennis
The men rode two laps of the 22.1 kilometre circuit, which started and finished at the Fuji Speedway. It began with a four kilometre mostly downhill section out of the Speedway, followed by a long uphill grind to the first time check at 9.7 kilometres. A long descent took the riders back to the entrance of the Speedway, followed by a hard rolling section to the finish line. The men rode in overcast and hot conditions, with the humidity at 95%, in air that felt more like soup.
Hugo Houle
The men rode in three waves, with Canada's Hugo Houle setting the first benchmark time. Houle was in the Hot Seat until Remco Evenepoel (Bel) in the second wave finally displaced him. Rigoberto Uran (Col) then bumped Evenepoel down five riders later, and the Colombian held the top spot until Tom Dumoulin demolished his time by over a minute.
Dumoulin, who shocked the cycling world by walking away from the sport before the start of the season, showed that he has regained his competitive fire by setting the fastest splits at every point, catching his 90 second man, Brandon McNulty (USA).
Unfortunately for Dumoulin, Roglic was having the ride of his life, catching both his 90 second man (Kasper Asgreen of Denmark) and three minute man (Joao Almeida of Portugal). Just showing how fast Roglic was, despite being caught, Asgreen still finished seventh. Roglic was the only rider to post a sub-56 minute time of 55:04.19 .
The final three riders to start - time trial specialists Stefan Kueng (Sui) and world champion Filippo Ganna (Ita), and road race silver medalist Wout van Aert (Bel) - were never in contention for gold, but all had a chance at the other two medal spots, with Kueng finishing fourth, Ganna fifth and van Aert sixth. Both Kueng and Ganna were less then two seconds out of the bronze medal time.
However, the day was Slovenia's, as they won their first ever gold medal in cycling, and their second of these Games.
| Men, 44.2 km | Time | Gap |
| 1 Primoz Roglic (Slovenia) | 0:55:04.19 |
0:00 |
| 2 Tom Dumoulin (Netherlands) | 0:56:05.58 | 1:01.39 |
| 3 Rohan Dennis (Australia) | 0:56:08.09 | 1:03.90 |
| 4 Stefan Kueng (Switzerland) | 0:56:08.49 | 1:04.30 |
| 5 Filippo Ganna (Italy) | 0:56:09.93 | 1:05.74 |
| 6 Wout van Aert (Belgium) | 0:56:44.72 | 1:40.53 |
| 7 Kasper Asgreen (Denmark) | 0:56:52.21 | 1:48.02 |
| 8 Rigoberto Uran (Colombia) | 0:57:18.69 | 2:14.50 |
| 9 Remco Evenepoel (Belgium) | 0:57:21.27 | 2:17.08 |
| 10 Patrick Bevin (New Zealand) | 0:57:24.29 | 2:20.10 |
| 11 Alberto Bettiol (Italy) | 0:57:38.06 | 2:33.87 |
| 12 Geraint Thomas (Great Britain) | 0:57:46.61 | 2:42.42 |
| 13 Hugo Houle (Canada) | 0:57:56.46 | 2:52.27 |
| 14 Stefan de Bod (South Africa) | 0:57:57.10 | 2:52.91 |
| 15 Maximilian Schachmann (Germany) | 0:58:33.82 | 3:29.63 |
| 16 Joao Almeida (Portugal) | 0:58:33.97 | 3:29.78 |
| 17 Remi Cavagna (France) | 0:58:39.06 | 3:34.87 |
| 18 Maciej Bodnar (Poland) | 0:58:47.10 | 3:42.91 |
| 19 Nikias Arndt (Germany) | 0:58:49.39 | 3:45.20 |
| 20 Aleksandr Vlasov (Russia) | 0:58:55.40 | 3:51.21 |
| 21 Nelson Oliveira (Portugal) | 0:58:59.22 | 3:55.03 |
| 22 Tanel Kangert (Estonia) | 0:59:05.25 | 4:01.06 |
| 23 Tobias S. Foss (Norway) | 0:59:51.68 | 4:47.49 |
| 24 Brandon McNulty (United States) | 0:59:57.73 | 4:53.54 |
| 25 George Bennett (New Zealand) | 1:00:28.39 | 5:24.20 |
| 26 Michael Kukrle (Czech Republic) | 1:00:41.55 | 5:37.36 |
| 27 Richie Porte (Australia) | 1:00:53.67 | 5:49.48 |
| 28 Nicolas Roche (Ireland) | 1:01:23.13 | 6:18.94 |
| 29 Tao Geoghegan Hart (Great Britain) | 1:01:44.81 | 6:40.62 |
| 30 Toms Skujins (Latvia) | 1:02:04.93 | 7:00.74 |
| 31 Patrick Konrad (Austria) | 1:02:05.08 | 7:00.89 |
| 32 Alexey Lutsenko (Kazakhstan) | 1:02:21.67 | 7:17.48 |
| 33 Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier (Eritrea) | 1:03:22.80 | 8:18.61 |
| 34 Lawson Craddock (United States) | 1:03:52.99 | 8:48.80 |
| 35 Saeid Safarzadeh (IRI) | 1:05:14.62 | 10:10.4 |
| 36 Azzedine Lagab (Algeria) | 1:05:21.53 | 10:17.3 |
| 37 Lukas Kubis (Slovakia) | 1:06:25.20 | 11:21.0 |
| 38 Ahmad Badreddin Wais (Equipe Olympique des Réfugiés) | 1:08:40.46 | 13:36.2 |
| DNF Jon Izagirre Insausti (Spain) |
| Return to Canadian Cyclist homepage | Back to Top |
